#ConfinedHogmanay

For several years, I've mostly spent the couple of days over New Year with the same group of friends. I do the cooking, as the person who likes it most, and I attempt to cover a range of allergies, preferences and plain old dislikes - usually fairly successfully. I like the challenge. This year was slightly different. For one thing, all our Christmas plans were cancelled so we've been in London with no guests, no family and nothing to do except go for walks to all of our local parks and read books/watch TV. And cook, of course. I always feel like New Year deserves some effort, as a Scot, even if I'm hardly having a big celebration! So I raked through the cookbooks to try and work out what would be a suitably celebratory meal for Hogmanay and Persiana has the answer (I am obsessed with this book, as you may have noticed). Spicy Prawn Rice, with a last minute side of courgettes and tomatoes.

The original recipe serves 6, so I halved it. This was still somewhat generous for three people. I am currently absolutely full of carbs and it's glorious. Start with the rice - 500g for 6, divide as you see fit for however many you're feeding. Parboil for approx 6 minutes, then drain and rinse thoroughly in cold water. Leave to one side.

Spice mix

Thinly slice 6 cloves of garlic (that's the full recipe, I did 5 because GARLIC), and grate a thumb of ginger. Create your spice mix: 2 tsps cumin, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp fenugreek, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, hefty pinch chilli flakes.

Gently cook the garlic for about 30 seconds, then add the spice mix and the grated ginger. Stir thoroughly and add raw, peeled prawns - about 600g for the full recipe. I used frozen prawns, so actually started with those as I thought they might take longer. Cook it all together until the prawns are just pink, then take off the heat (this is only the second time I have ever dealt with raw prawns - the first is a complicated story involving live ones, ask me sometime).

Line your saucepan with some greaseproof baking parchment, then add a chunk of butter and some olive oil. Scatter a layer of the rice, then the prawn mixture and continue to layer it all up. Wrap the saucepan lid in a teatowel and cook on the lowest possible heat for approximately 40 minutes.

At this point I realised that the recipe is basically carbs and prawns, and that we have very few other vegetables in the house. Fortunately we had courgette and tomatoes, so I threw together another recipe from Persiana. It's meant for baby courgettes, but I turned the one full size courgette we had into batons, chopped the cherry tomatoes (and some sun-dried ones from the fridge) and threw them in the oven for 15 minutes with some sliced garlic, cumin and olive oil. Will definitely repeat that, it was lovely.

*Serving Suggestion

When the prawn rice is cooked, up-end the saucepan into a serving dish and eat. It was really good - the effort is mostly in putting together the spice mix early on so actually a lot less hassle than it sounded!

Spicy Prawn Rice

It's weird to look forward to 2021. I've not seen my parents for a full 12 months now, and I'm not sure when I will next - they should be vaccinated pretty soon, but when I last spoke to them they didn't have dates for that - and it's not really sensible to go and visit until they've had the vaccine due to the distance involved. Aspects of 2020 have been positive (cooking, this community, I have good employers and colleagues, and a great husband), but it's been such a weird year that I don't really know what to make of it. Somethings will definitely be taken forward, but I don't yet know what will be dropped.

In the mean time, I've opened the Prosecco so a very Happy New Year all! 

xx