Tonight's dinner: shrimp scampi, using roughly this recipe.
Prep Shot:
Substitutions made:
- Clearly, I used spaghetti, not linguine. I ain't got a ton of money and I'm interested in using what I have on hand. If you're gonna grief about it, grief someplace elsewhere.
- I didn't have red pepper flakes even though for the life of me I thought I did. They seemed a consistent thread in recipes across the 'net, though, so...I cringed and shook on a tiny bit of ground red instead.
- Also I totally blanked on the recipe even calling for parsley, not to mention my Acme hasn't gotten produce in in like a week thanks to Snowmaggedeon 2016
- Just for the curious I did opt to cook with shells-on, in part because that's how the shrimp came to me.
Action Shot:
If you're telling me that's totally way too small of a pot to successfully cook spaghetti in, save your breath and buy me a new pot. I'm broke. I have three. That's how it's gonna be for the foreseeable future.
Things I Went With Even Though I Was Like, But Why?
- using both olive oil and butter. They've both fats, one is solid at room temp (ish), one isn't. I assume that is important somehow.
Modifications For Being A Single Person:
- I like to make about 10 shrimp for my personal consumption if I don't want leftovers. These are the bigger guys (clearly), 26/30 count. I think 10 guys is about 6-8 oz. I don't know, I'm going to get a kitchen scale
- The rest of the bottle of wine is for drinking, duh (KIDDING) (Am I?)
Plated Shot:
This recipe came together super quickly, maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes start to finish including the water to boil the pasta.
Next Up: Tomorrow - Budget Byte's Zuppa Toscana
I have never made either of these dishes before.
1) Red pepper flakes are best liberated from pizza places and italian restaurants. Order a pizza and ask for lots of red pepper flakes. As you need about half a packet for most recipes, the double handful the average pizza joint will give you will last the rest of the year.
2) Parsley is easily grown in a small pot on the windowsill in the kitchen. Celebrate Sunday by taking it over to the sink and splashing it with some water, and celebrate life by pruning sprigs off of it to put on your plate. et viola. It's the '70s again. That said, parsley is a bitter and aids digestion so it actually serves a function if you eat it (I always eat it). 'cuz thing is? The parsley you buy is always 11 times as much as you'll ever need unless you're making tabouleh.
3) Most sauteed-shrimp-and-pasta recipes use a blend of olive oil and butter because if you used just butter it would be too rich and overpower the shrimp but if you used just olive oil the shrimp would taste fishy. You need butterfats to really make shellfish come alive (I'm sure Alton Brown has an overly-complex explanation as to why) but unless it's a truly robust flavor (such as lobster) you need to cut the butter a little. Your other alternative would be to use clarified butter (or ghee) but in my opinion, the olive oil/butter blend tastes lighter.
4) Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the scampi pan nonstick? I'm not going to cast aspersions on anyone's (working) cookware but keep in mind that nonstick wears out. Regardless of your feelings on ingesting teflon, aged nonstick cookware becomes a chore to work with while aged steel just exists. I bought a set of Costco steel pans for $190 in... 2001. They're still exceptional. And I'm willing to bet someone somewhere near you has taken pans very similar to mine to the Salvation Army.
5) Buy the cheap linguini, not the expensive spaghetti. Holds sauce better. Yes, olive oil and butter is sauce.
6) Beware any website that suggests you make shellfish stock. It's useful for exactly nothing and will stink up your house something amazing.
posted 3010 days ago