Black pasta with cherry tomatoes and prawns recipe

Black pasta (opens in new tab) is very dramatic, and the colour comes from squid ink so it has a bit more of a gutsy flavour than regular pasta. Your local deli should have it, or even fishmongers, but if you can’t find it this recipe can be made easily with regular pasta. When it comes to the pasta it's your choice of shape - we’ve done spaghetti but there’s no reason cherry tomatoes and prawns won’t love a penne or fettuccine. This black pasta dish looks lovely with various colours of cherry tomatoes if you are able to find them. If you can’t find cherry tomatoes at all, just use regular tomatoes and chop them into chunks or thick slices, or use tinned cherry tomatoes. It is useful to save a bit of the pasta cooking water to help the lemon juice and herbs cling to the pasta like a sauce. Also, thanks to the gorgeous deep savoury flavour of the squid ink pasta, this recipe will work well with almost any fish or shellfish. We also love it with clams and squid, and the pale peachy pink colour of salmon and trout look great against the black pasta, but feel free to add in whatever other seafood suits you!

Ingredients

• 250g black squid ink spaghetti or linguine
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 300g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• Juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 300g shrimp or prawns
• Small bunch roughly chopped parsley

Method

1. Cook the pasta according to package instructions, once cooked drain, drizzle over olive oil, and set aside.
2. While the pasta is cooking heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Cook the tomatoes for 5mins, then add the garlic and cook for another minute. Stir in the prawns and fry until cooked through.
3. Add the drained pasta to the frying pan and season well. Stir in the lemon zest and juice to taste. Top with parsley to serve.