This week’s Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe was chosen by Farah of Confessions of a Novice Baker.
I love shrimp. I have been looking forward to splurging on a package of shrimp to make this dish. And it didn’t disappoint!
Linguini with Shrimp
Preface:
- instead of linguini, I used a Tri-Color Vegetable Pasta
- I upped the garlic to 3 cloves … I love garlic
- I used only 3/4 of a pound of shrimp, which I bought peeled, deveined and frozen. I would have bought them with shells, if I could have found them, because I think that, even frozen, they retain more flavor if they are with shells.
- the white wine that I used was actually the last part of a bottle of cooking wine … I can imagine that the dish would have been even better with a decent quality wine.
- asparagus is unheard of in Peten, however, I had just made a very tasty green bean recipe the day before, and had half of the beans left over, so decided to use them instead.
- I had no parsley, and don’t actually like parsley all that much, so I used a mixture of half fresh chopped cilantro, and half fresh chopped basil.
- I had no cherry tomatoes, so I chopped up a couple of Roma tomatoes.
- 3/4 pound linguini
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1 bunch asparagus stalks, trimmed
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 container cherry tomatoes, halved
Add the lemon juice, white wine and the reserved cup of water to the skillet. Let simmer until the liquid is reduced by about half.
Delicious! I never would have chosen to make a pasta with that combination of flavors. However, I have learned that there are a lot of unlikely flavor combinations that are incredibly delicious. This combination of garlic, lemon and wine are a perfect background for the shrimp. The slightly crunchy (stringless) green beans were a perfect foil for the pasta, and also combined well with the lemony flavor. I made one error in that I must have overcooked the shrimp a bit … it turned out more chewy than I would have liked (or maybe it had been sitting frozen at Maxi-Bodega for way to long, its hard to say with shrimp here). I made an interesting discovery when I didn’t reheat the noodles before adding the sauce, and they were so cool that everything cooled right off. E. said that he thought that it was a pasta salad (which would be okay, except that he doesn’t really like salads). I found out later, when we had it served hot, that that was not only because it was cold, but because the dressing reminded him of salad dressing. And when I thought about it, I realized that yes, it is a dish that could quite easily be served cold with excellent results.
If I am lucky enough to have some fresh shrimp, I would definitely plan to make this recipe again.
Love your pictures!
and the tricolor pasta….nice idea!
Your rainforest version looks and sounds great, love the green beans addition.
Wow ~ Loved your food photos in this post ~ If you ever want to submit any to the Food Stories Monthly Photo Contest, just let me know ~ I’d love to put them up for everyone to see 🙂