On Wednesday night I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner. I dragged in got home from work, opened the freezer, and a bag of raw shrimp was staring at me. Beside it was a bag of petite peas. I thought, "Bingo!"
I put the frozen raw shrimp in a colander in the sink to defrost a bit, put on the water for the macaroni and got to work.
I chopped 4 cloves of garlic and added them to the pan with 3-4 T olive oil. (Who am I kidding?! I just poured oil in the pan until I thought there was enough!) Once the oil began to shimmer and the garlic was sizzling I added a couple of pinches of pepperoncini. The oils from the dried pepper flakes turn the oil a reddish color which means it's time to remove the pan from the heat.
By this time the frozen shrimp should have defrosted a wee bit so shell removal is easy. Quickly rinse shrimp in the colander with cold water, remove shells, pat dry with paper towels, and season with salt and pepper.
I put the pan back on the heat and turned up the flame. When it was hot, I lowered the heat to med-low/low and added the shrimp in a single layer. I kept the heat on low to slowly cook the shrimp. You have to be careful here, don't cook too fast as the very middle of the shrimp are probably still frozen or just this side of thawed and you don't want rubber shrimp. I cooked them until the sides of each shrimp were slightly pink, turned over and cooked for about 20 seconds more. I added the peas and stirred it all together. I then added about 1/4 cup of tomato sauce to the pan to give it all a tomato sauce base. Instead of the tomato sauce you could add butter, lemon and white wine...whatever you like, or not add anything else. The flavor of the garlic, shrimp and pepperoncini are enough with the pasta water and an extra shot of olive oil once it's off heat.
Using tongs, I transferred the al dente fettuccine from the pot of water and added it to the pan. I used about 1/2 lb of macaroni, the rest I drained and put in a ziplock for use another day.
I tossed the entire mixture in the pan and then served it immediately!
And how was it? It was delicious! Sorry I didn't think to take a picture on the dinner plate. Once it was served I didn't think about taking a prettier picture on the plate until after it was all gone! Ha!
Mangia!
