The magic of cooking is that you can make your food your own. If you love butter, add extra butter. If you prefer your pasta al dente, stop cooking it a little sooner. If you love bacon, well, almost every recipe can benefit from a side of the good stuff. Take my recipes with a grain of salt and feel free to add your own twist!
Summer scampi is a shrimp scampi that is just light enough in its flavor to be enjoyed on a warm summer evening. The heirloom tomatoes are perfectly in season and the lemon juice gives the dish a brightness and lightness! The Italian parsley adds a fresh bite to the dish. This dish pairs well with Chardonnay.
Shrimp are inexpensive at the grocery store. I recommend getting them from the deli/seafood section and not buying them pre-packaged. I usually opt for pre-cleaned, de-veined, and de-shelled shrimp. You don’t need the shells for the sauce and this saves you a lot of time. I like to add other seafood options to my dish as well. For this, I opt for a bag of frozen mixed seafood which is cost efficient but still gives me a variety of proteins to add to the dish.
Ingredients – comfortably serves two with a serving+ of leftovers
- Fresh linguini (refrigerator section of most grocery stores)
- 8 Shrimp
- 1 cup of defrosted seafood mix (muscles, calamari, octopus, etc.)
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup of white wine
- Juice from 1/2 lemon
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 2 heirloom tomatoes (about a cup of large dice)
- Italian parsley
- Garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, salt, pepper
Instructions:
Prep: Cut garlic cloves into a fine dice. Clean, de-shell, and de-vein the shrimp. Season the shrimp with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano. Chop tomatoes into a large dice, set aside. Chop about 1/4 cup of parsley, set aside. Defrost the frozen seafood in warm water (see my post on how to best defrost!).
Cook:
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil on a back burner. Fresh pasta only takes 3-4 minutes to cook so save this part for last. In the meantime…
- In a 10in-12in pan heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the finely diced garlic to the pan and cook for 2 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the 8 seasoned shrimp to the pan. Let cook for 1 minute on high heat. Flip the shrimp then add the juice of half of a lemon. Now add 1 cup of the seafood mix to the pan. Season with salt, pepper, onion powder, and oregano. Add 1 cup of white wine, bring to a boil, then set on low heat. Allow the contents in your pan to simmer for 7 minutes.
- Cook your pasta! Follow the instructions on packaging as cook time may differ by brand.
- Once pasta is strained, add 1 tablespoon of butter and salt and pepper to pasta pot. Mix.
- Use tongs to add the seasoned/buttered pasta to the pan of seafood/sauce. Mix gently but throughly. If your pasta seems dry, taste it then add more butter or more lemon juice, whichever flavors seems lacking.
- Add chopped tomatoes to your pan, mix then serve! Sprinkle freshly chopped parsley on top of the pasta while you serve.
Enjoy!
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