Prawns with tomato stew

The other night I went out for dinner (a respite from all this cooking, shooting and fiending) and had a very decent red mullet served with tomato and raisin stew. The stew was simply AMAZING. Chunks of ripe tomatoes floating in a sauce with quite a kick from chillies and sweetness from the raisins. I loved it. I wanted to have it again. I wanted to COOK IT.

So I did some research, because it was really not quite your ordinary tomato sauce, and I found a bit here, a bit there (thank you, Brooklyn Farm Girl!). I worked out my own version with added chillies and sultanas and since I couldn’t get my hands on red mullet, I thought prawns would work handsomely. In fact anything might work, in fact you can just eat it on its own or treat as a condiment.

My tomatoes came from the garden – sadly the last stragglers, they’ve been going strong and almost all have ripened but the recent colder weather marks the end of season, shop bought beckon soon. That’s how I had a variety of cherry, heritage, golden, red – but it tasted perhaps all the lovelier for that. I skinned the larger ones – how-to here – and left the small, especially the thin skinned ones, whole. I did not deseed them, wanting to get some liquid for the sauce.

Prawns were seared very quickly in a separate pan and then put on top of the stew to absorb the flavour. They might turn mushy from the acidity of the stew if cooked straight in the tomatoes.