Week 11: Shrimp Scampi Pasta

Vegetable ingredient: Does parsley count?





It occurred to me that I hadn't made pasta yet. Plus, it was Good Friday. So I settled on a pasta dish with fish or shrimp. I knew I didn't want a dairy-based sauce, but most of the oil-based sauces asked for lemons (not a hit in our family). In the end, I picked this recipe: 


Ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1 lb peeled and deveined large shrimp (raw; 20 to 25 per lb) (I used frozen shrimp. They were supposed to be deveined, but they needed ... touch-ups)

• 4 large garlic cloves, left unpeeled and forced through a garlic press (I used 1 Dorot frozen crushed garlic cube, it seemed plenty)

• 1/2 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes

• 1/2 cup dry white wine

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 3/4 lb capellini (angel-hair pasta) I used linguine (the thing with angel-hair pasta is that it's so easy to overcook)

• 1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (I tossed in some arugula as well.)

Preparation: 

Bring a 6- to 8-quart pot of salted water to a boil.Meanwhile, heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté shrimp, turning over once, until just cooked through, about 2 minutes, and transfer with a slotted spoon to a large bowl. Add garlic to oil remaining in skillet along with red pepper flakes, wine, salt, and pepper and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, 1 minute. Add butter to skillet, stirring until melted, and stir in shrimp. Remove skillet from heat.

 

Cook pasta in boiling water until just tender, about 3 minutes. Reserve 1 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander. Toss pasta well with shrimp mixture and parsley in large bowl, adding some of reserved cooking water if necessary to keep moist.

Verdict: 8.5/10

The dish turned out very nice, much better than anything "Alfredo" would have been. The shrimp were a tad rubbery, perhaps I shouldn't have put them into the oil (since they were pre-cooked). I am glad, though, that I didn't use as much garlic as the recipe called for. Leftovers were gladly eaten the next day (not by my 4-year old, of course. She ate the linguine with pesto.)