Shrimp Scampi

Believe it or not, shrimp scampi is something I’ve never made and rarely ordered in restaurants. I bought some shrimp recently thinking I’d make the Mexican shrimp that I love, but someone was grumbling about having something different, so I cruised through the NY Times cooking site, and found this. Serves 4:

Shrimp Scampi

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ cup dry white wine or broth
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 ¾ pounds large or extra-large shrimp, shelled
• 1/3 cup chopped parsley
• Freshly squeezed juice of half a lemon
• Cooked pasta

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt butter with olive oil. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add wine or broth, salt, red pepper flakes and plenty of black pepper and bring to a simmer. Let wine reduce by half, about 2 minutes.

Add shrimp and sauté until they just turn pink, 2 to 4 minutes depending upon their size. Stir in the parsley and lemon juice and serve over pasta and enjoy!

My verdict:

Sorry I waited all this time before making scampi — it was easy and yummy! This all came together while the pasta was cooking.

In the comments online, a lot of people suggested cooking the shrimp shells with the wine to add flavor, so I upped the wine to 1 cup, put it in a small saucepan with the shells and simmered it for about 10 minutes while I was prepping the rest. Instead of serving the shrimp over pasta, I added the pasta and a little pasta water in the pan with the shrimp and tossed that together for a minute or two before serving it. That might have overcooked my shrimp a bit, so the recommendation would be to wait to add the shrimp until your pasta (linguini fini in this case) is cooked.