Sorry for the radio silence folks! Lots of craziness going on over here, but don’t worry, there’s still been cooking!
When I saw rock shrimp on sale for 25% off last week I just had to buy it. I knew immediately what I was going to use it for, too: Giada de Laurentiis’s Linguine with Shrimp and Lemon Oil from her book Giada’s Kitchen: New Italian Favorites. I really love this book for its simple and delicious recipes and the wide range of dishes in it (there’s everything in there from drinks to kid’s food!). When I first flipped through the book I folded down about half the pages, so I knew it was a keeper right away! And I haven’t been let down yet, every recipe I’ve tried from this book has been excellent. This one was no exception!
This is one of those pasta recipes that with not too much work turns out worthy of a restaurant pasta dish. Such a rarity! It took less than an hour to whip this dinner up but it was so satisfying and interesting that if I had gotten this at a restaurant, I would have thought it was too hard to replicate at home . . .
The first thing you do for this recipe is take all the skin off a lemon and plop it into the olive oil (for the “lemon oil,” obviously):
While the lemon flavors the oil, you start the pasta, saute the shallots and garlic in oil and then the shrimp. I let the pasta water boil while I finished prepping the shallots and garlic (and zesting another lemon and chopping the parsley and cleaning the arugula). It turns out that it takes the same amount of time to boil water as it does for me to do all that prep! Good to know, that means I saved at least 10 minutes from start to finish! Not bad right?
After sauteing everything you add the linguine and remaining ingredients on top. A quick stir to mix everything up and you’re done!
The lemon flavor is very pronounced but not biting, the shrimp is tender and buttery, and the bit of sauce at the bottom? Amazing when sopped up with some bread. I liked mine with a bit of extra pepper on top . . . but then again I think pepper makes everything taste better generally . . .
Linguine with (Rock) Shrimp and Lemon Oil
Adapted from Giada’s Kitchen
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil (for lemon oil)
- Zest of 1 lemon (for lemon oil)
- 1 pound whole wheat linguine
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 shallots, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 pound rock shrimp (or 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined)
- Zest of 1 lemon (yes another one!)
- 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
- 3 ounces arugula
- 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Set up the lemon oil: Put zest of 1 lemon into the 1/2 cup of olive oil and set it aside for later.
Cook linguine as directed on package, cooking to just shy of al dente. Heat olive oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Cook shallots and garlic for about 2 minutes, then add shrimp and cook about 5 minutes. Add drained linguine, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt & pepper, and toss to combine. Remove pot from heat and add arugula, mixing to allow arugula to wilt in residual heat.
Use a mesh sieve to strain the zest out of the lemon oil, then add the oil to the pasta (zest can be thrown out). Add parsley to the pasta and serve immediately (with a little extra pepper on top if you’re like me).
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Agreed! Lemon and pepper, how can you go wrong?