you little scamp

Something easy, garlicky, and good for a Friday night:  shrimp scampi.  It cooks literally in the time it takes to boil the noodles, and the prep work before hand takes just a few minutes.  I used five small cloves of garlic, sliced thin on my mandolin, for the starting point.  You can use more or less, depending on your taste.  I use my full sized mandolin, but a little hand held job will do the trick for super thin slicing just as well, for a third the price, or less.  Then there's the quick work of peeling the shrimp, deveining them (or thawing out a dozen or so frozen, uncooked shrimp), chopping up a bit of optional broccoli for color and flavor, mincing a handful of parsley, and assembling a pinch of salt (careful, the shrimp can be salty), teaspoon of pepper, and a teaspoon of red pepper flakes.  Then zest a lemon (I used a meyer lemon) into a measuring cup and squeeze in the juice.  Round that up to about a half a cup with a splash of white wine.  While you are doing that, bring a big pot of water to boil.

an easy mise en place for scampi with broccoli

Throw the pasta in the boiling water.  I like linguine with this dish, but I didn't have any on hand, so tonight I used spaghetti.  Toss about two tablespoons each of butter and olive oil in a pan over medium low heat, when the butter has melted and begins to bubble, toss in the garlic.  Once it starts to sizzle and turn a very pale yellow, throw in the lemon/wine mixture and the spices, and turn the heat up to medium.  

the garlic sauce will start to thicken up in just a couple of minutes

 toss in the shrimp and the broccoli

Cook just until the shrimp are pink and the broccoli is crisp/tender, about five minutes.  Drain the pasta, and put it back in the pot, and add the sauce.  Toss the mixture a bit to combine, and serve with a nice crisp salad, a bit of warm bread if you like (great for sopping up the last of the buttery sauce), and a big fat chardonnay.

sprinkle on the parsley and you are good to go

A beautiful, flavorful meal for a relaxing beginning to the Memorial day weekend.