One-pot pasta with mushrooms and leeks

Another NYT recipe, another one-pot recipe

Time saver: I saw that Trader Joe's has now sells peeled garlic cloves, so I got those.

The lemon juice did what it was supposed to do (deglaze the pan, or rather Dutch oven), but it also added a sour note I could have done without.

4 cups of liquid was just enough to cook the pasta. 

Here's the finished dish, it looked pretty, and the ricotta made it creamy and less sour.

Alas, for once, this was a recipe that looked better than it tasted. Perhaps it was the broth I used, perhaps it was the lemon juice, but I'm not sure I tasted 'umami,' rather, it tasted a little sour (but the ricotta, once mixed with the pasta, balanced it out nicely). 

7/10

Fettuccine with Asparagus

Another NY Times Cooking recipe. My family isn't keen on ricotta-based sauces, so I picked this recipe, because who doesn't like pasta with butter and cheese? Fresh asparagus and herbs add some green.

Step 4: Drop the fettuccine into salted boiling water. Let cook to desired degree of doneness (cooking time will range from about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes for fresh pasta to 9 minutes or more for dried). Reserve 2 tablespoons cooking water. Drain the pasta

Step 5: Heat the butter in the pot in which the pasta was cooked. Add the asparagus pieces and the fettuccine. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the reserved 2 tablespoons of cooking water and basil. Toss to blend. Serve hot with Parmesan cheese on the side.

I used parsley instead of basil and added some toasted pine nuts (because we had them). It was alright, but will probably not become a standard (too much green for our tween).

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.)