spring stew with prawns

i wanted something light and fresh for supper earlier this week, but salad wasn’t going to cut it as i wanted some sort of comfort factor as well. i thought about a sort of stew, but for spring, full of fresh seasonal vegetable and herb flavours. i was going to cross my fingers and make something up but then remembered diana henry’s crazy water and decided to adapt this instead.

it’s very simple – a light stock is made with white wine, water, garlic chilli, tomato and herbs plus a healthy glug of olive oil. in the original recipe this is then used as a poaching broth for fish – instead i added some cooked cannellini beans and pieces of cooked asparagus (i didn’t want the asparagus flavour to be too dominant) plus raw king prawns. once i’d dished up i added a few oven-roasted tomatoes as well, to oomph up the flavours. it worked really well and i’ll try this approach again. i think mograbiah (giant couscous) or farro (barley/spelt) would be a good alternative to the beans, as would a chunky piece of toasted sour dough.