By Matt Anderson, Memory Care Supervisor
This recipe holds a special place in my heart as it is one of the first recipes I really spent time learning to cook, and for the fact that I developed it on my own from watching hours and hours of Food Network shows as a kid. Historically, this was always the first meal I cooked for girlfriends, including my wife, and it has become one of her favorites that she requests often.
Ingredients
- 1 pound of shrimp (preferably not frozen) de-veined and de-shelled
- 1 box dry linguine
- 1 jar sun dried tomatoes in olive oil (I really like the one from Trader Joe’s)
- 1 quart heavy cream
- 1 Bottle Pinot Grigio or preferred White Wine (1/8 cup to cook with, the rest to drink with dinner!)
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese
- 1 head of garlic
- Salt, Pepper, Chili Flakes, Parsley (All to Taste)
- ¼ stick (4 tbps) unsalted butter
Directions
- Start by bringing 8 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot, salt to taste.
- Peel garlic, smashing half of the cloves with the flat of a knife, and finely dicing the other half of the cloves.
- Prepare shrimp by placing in a large bowl and seasoning with sea salt and black pepper, and the fine chopped garlic, tossing in the bowl to coat.
- While you are waiting for your water to boil, drain the oil from your sun dried tomatoes by using a mesh strainer or flipping the lid upside down and allowing only a small opening to drain the oil out of. No need to press or squeeze the tomatoes. Save this oil off to the side for later.
- Next, in a smaller sauce pan, add your heavy cream, drained sun dried tomatoes (they will still contain a fair amount of oil in them) and bring to a simmer stirring frequently so that the cream does not burn. Cook over medium high heat until the sauce turns a dark pink or light red color from the tomatoes and oil. Reduce the heat to low and let simmer, uncovered, for 15 to 20 mins, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens slightly.
- Add linguine to boiling water, cooking for 8-10 mins until just before reaching desired consistency.
- As sauce is cooking, heat a large non-stick frying pan over high heat. When pan is hot enough that water dances when thrown on it, add butter and oil from sundried tomatoes, as well as crushed garlic cloves.
- Once butter is melted and mixture is very hot, add shrimp in a single layer to the pan, with a little space around each shrimp (if the pan is not big enough you can two the shrimp in two batches) and cook on high for 2 minutes. Flip the shrimp after 2 minutes, or when they become orange underneath but still opaque grey in the middle.
- After flipping the shrimp once quickly add the white wine and introduce flame to burn off the alcohol and brown the shrimp on top. (CAUTION: There will be fire!)
- Once the shrimp have cooked an additional 2 minutes remove them from the pan and allow them to cool (they will continue to cook internally for a few minutes).
- Drain pasta and return to pot. Add sauce and mix thoroughly, allowing to cook over medium heat for another 5 minutes until pasta has reached desired doneness.
- Remove from heat, add parmesan cheese and stir well.
- Serve hot, with the shrimp laid on top, and sprinkled with fresh cut parsley or parsley flakes.