The corona virus is wreaking havoc with our travel plans, our visits to restaurants, and even our shopping habits. Trips to the supermarket should be kept to the minimum… or even better, use the weekly delivery service offered.

So this meal is a joyful, flavourful example of necessity being the mother of invention.

I always keep a bag of fat, juicy frozen cooked and peeled, head-off prawns in my freezer – go here for why these are better than fresh, unless you are very friendly with a fisherman.

And I always keep a slab of good quality feta, and some creamy yoghurt in my fridge.

In freezer or fridge there’ll be lardons or salami.

In my larder you will find onions, garlic, and basmati rice… no surprise there. But you will also find Japanese furikake for instant glamour and added umami.

In fact the only thing you might have to go out and buy fresh would be the green pepper – but you could substitute that for frozen peas.

Recipe for joyful, flavourful prawns with rosy feta rice

Serves 2

Ingredients

• ¾ cup/150g basmati rice
• 1 stock cube
• 70g/2 oz lardons…or salami
• 200g/7 oz feta
• 150g/5 oz fat, juicy frozen cooked and peeled, head-off prawns
• 4 tbsps creamy yoghurt
• good generous sprinkling of Spanish sweet smoked paprika or ¼ tsp rose harissa
• 1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 onion
• 1 green pepper, or a handful (1 cup/75g) of frozen peas
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tsps furikake (optional)
• olive oil for frying

Method

1. Take the yoghurt out of the fridge – warm it gently if you can, otherwise room temperature is fine.
2. Make the rice with stock made with the stock cube (follow this link for the simple method).
3. Peel and chop the onion finely and begin to fry gently.
4. Defrost the prawns (follow this link for the best way to do that)
5. Cut the pepper into halves, deseed it, and chop it into match-like strips. If you are substituting the pepper for frozen peas. Add to the onion once it starts to turn translucent. Turn the heat up a little. Add the lardons (if you are using salami, cut it into cubes, but keep it back until nearly the end).
6. Once the lardons are cooked through, add the garlic, the pepper, and the paprika or harissa. Stir well.
7. Add the prawns, stir well to heat through. Crumble over the feta roughly. Turn off the heat.
8. Stir about half the mixture through the rice. Serve with the remaining prawn mixture in the middle of a bed of rice mix. Sprinkle over some glamorous furikake.