A blog by Cameron and Shannon

Hello, readers! Today we’re going to cook shrimp scampi.

Shannon wrote an entry for soup back on the old blog, and the intention was (and is) for us to start doing that on a regular basis. It’s easy and interesting posting material, and hey, a great way to make a successful new recipe more rewarding is to blog about it and have someone else read and try and love it. Am I right? I’m right. So let’s do this.

This particular recipe is my own modification of Alton Brown’s Scampi v2.0, available in I’m Just Here For The Food. His recipe produces nice shrimp scampi (which I had successfully cooked once before), but I wanted to throw some pasta in there, so I doubled some of the ingredients.

Keep in mind that I am in no way an experienced (or even semi-competent) cook. I just like food and can follow directions. Also, I’m writing this assuming you know about as much as me, so don’t get mad at me if I explain how to peel a tomato and you already know how.

Shrimp, peeled, veined, and ready to roll. I cooked this on St. Patrick’s Day (note Guinness).

Anyway, here’s your ingredient list. It’s pretty painless.

• 1 lb. large shrimp (buy whole and not previously frozen if possible)
• 2-3 roma tomatoes
• A bunch of fresh parsley
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 shallots (or one big shallot, I guess)
• 1 lemon
• 1 lb. angelhair pasta
• Olive oil
• Salt (kosher; if you don’t have kosher salt you should switch from table salt for good)
• Pepper (fresh ground; if you don’t have a pepper grinder you should switch from table pepper for good)

Here’s your equipment list. Really simple.

• Pasta-cookin’ pot
• Standard sauté pan
• Colander
• Big bowl for mixing

Okay. The first thing you’re going to want to do is to peel and devein all those shrimp. I happened to get what I believe are the most poo-ridden shrimp I have ever seen, so this took me a while and was not suitable for photographing.

Just kidding! Here’s a picture of shrimp poo.

This shrimp evidently lived the last moments of his life in bloated discomfort.

After your shrimp are peeled, depooed, and rinsed, set them aside for now. And rinse your shrimpy fingers.

If you’re lazy (and really like cleaning out your food processor), you can toss the parsley, garlic, and shallots in there, but the rest of you should whip out the ol’ chopping block and start chopping. The garlic and shallots should be minced, and the parsley should be chopped as finely as you can.

Chopping!

You’re going to want to get the garlic/shallot/parsley mixture as fine as possible (Alton says “paste-like”). For this, I whipped out our trusty mortar & pestle (a useful tool for mashing herbs, and for making potions). I mashed everything together for a while and then re-chopped it just to get it as fine as possible.

Mashing!

The next step is to de-seed and dice your tomatoes. Alton says to peel them, but I prefer to not bother - diced finely enough, the skin doesn’t really affect anything. (If you hate tomato skin, make cuts on the ends of the tomato and toss it in boiling water for about 20 seconds, then ice water for 20 seconds, and the skin will slide right off.) To de-seed them, cut them lengthwise and dig the seeds out with your fingers.

The tomato and the parsley mixture, ready to roll

Go ahead and start the water for your pasta at this point. It doesn’t take long for the shrimp to cook; by the time they’re done your water should be just about boiling. (You should always salt pasta water — throw a couple of pinches in at some point.)

Cut the lemon in half and score an X in both sides, so it’ll be easier to squeeze.

Now you have all of your ingredients ready to roll. Heat 4 tablespoons (or so) of olive oil in your pan over medium heat, and when the oil is hot, put in all of your shrimp.

It really won’t take the shrimp long to cook, so this part is important. Let them hang out for about 20-30 seconds, and then grab some tongs and start flipping them. The idea is to get each side a little done before you have other ingredients in the pan to deal with.

I’m slow, so it probably took me about 60-90 seconds to flip all the shrimp. As soon as you don’t have any non-pink sides up, put your tomatoes in. Cook that for 30 seconds, while mixing everything around, and then put in your garlic/shallot/parsley mixture. (Don’t just plop it in the middle or it’ll be a pain to mix around evenly — use a spoon or just scrape it off the chopping block in sections.) Squeeze both halves of the lemon over everything, because that’s fun to do while everything is cooking (or you could have squeezed them earlier, I guess — whatever, just put the juice in now.)

The shrimp at a simmer. Colorful!

Your shrimp should be done by now - don’t rubberize them while you’re stirring, go ahead and turn down the heat to an ultra-slow simmer.

Your pasta water will be boiling now for sure - toss in the pasta. While it’s cooking, stir your scampi around until everything is evenly distributed, and salt to taste — mine definitely needed some salt. Also, get your mixing bowl and pour in a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and a pinch of salt & pepper.

Angelhair is irritatingly easy to overcook, so don’t let that happen. Don’t wait for it to get completely soft in the water - as soon as you feel like it’s almost done but not quite, pull it out and drain it. The last bit of softening will happen anyway. Next, you’re going to apply my awesome custom touch to this dish. (Get excited!)

Put the drained pasta in the mixing bowl and fold it around to pick up all of the nice olive oil & salt & pepper. Then take the colander that you just used for the pasta (or another colander, if you like cleaning colanders), hold it over the mixing bowl, and pour the entire shrimp mixture through it.

Set your strained shrimpy mixture aside in a bowl, mix your new shrimpy pasta all up, and voila, you have a delicious pasta upon which you can place your delicious shrimp scampi.

Garnish with a sprig of parsley for maximum floofiness.

The final dish, plated as attractively as I could muster.

I hope you enjoy this dish if you do choose to make it. I’m a big fan - it’s not too expensive (for a shrimp dish), tastes sharp and fresh (but not too lemony), and only requires a bit of chopping and a minimum amount of tricky timing. I haven’t tried cooking other scampi recipes, so I have nothing to compare it to, but it’s sure as heck better than Olive Garden’s.