from Cooking Tips for Desperate Fishwives
“We go out for sushi downtown near Chinatown in Victoria. We are the only customers in the restaurant. Rick gives the sushi chef a bag filled with fresh urchin. The chef gives us a free appetizer in exchange. Rick can hardly close his hands because urchin spines have lodges in his knuckle joints. I reach out across the table, and we are the same two people who dated twenty-eight years ago.”
Ingredients
1 lb BC Spot prawns, deheaded
½ cup salted butter
2 cloves of minced garlic
½ lemon, juiced (use juice from 1 whole lemon if you like a sharp lemony flavour)
Dash of Tabasco sauce (optional, but highly recommended)
½ cup seafood or chicken broth (I often use the premade stock in tetra packs but homemade is best)
1 cup cleaned fresh sea urchin roe
Cooked pasta noodles, for serving
Directions
To prepare prawns: Place thawed headless spot prawns in boiling water. Set your timer for 3 minutes. Strain and rinse the prawns with cold water. Peel the cooked prawns and set aside until the fettucine is ready.
To make the sauce: Melt butter in a saucepan on medium heat. Add minced garlic and stir for a few minutes with a wooden spoon. Don’t brown the garlic. Add the lemon juice and Tabasco sauce, then stir in the stock. Bring to a boil. Turn heat down, then add the urchin roe, and whisk this mixture. Simmer for a few minutes until it thickens.
Pour urchin sauce over pasta noodles and top with cooked BC Spot prawns. Serve with a fresh green salad and a slice of fresh sourdough bread.
Nada’s Tips & Tricks: I added other seafood to the dish to satisfy the carnivores around the table. You can include any seafood your people enjoy – just make sure the prawns and urchin take center stage!
Contents and images used with permission by author Margot Fedoruk https://margotfedoruk.ca/ and Heritage House.https://www.heritagehouse.ca/book/cooking-tips-for-desperate-fishwives/
