A Fresh, Simple Pasta: Spaghetti with Shrimp and Garlic
I first discovered this dish watching the movie Chef (if you haven’t watched it, go watch it first, at least until the scene where Carl serves Molly this amazing late night pasta dish; this is what we’ll be making, and you’ll definitely want to cook it after watching that). Since then, this is probably my wife’s most requested at-home date night dinner. It is so flavorful and so simple to make, I usually will make this once the kids are in bed since it’s so quick and requires so few dishes.
You can find dozens of these recipes online, and they’ll each be slightly different (mine is no exception), so hopefully I’ll be able to show you how to do this, not just what to do. This particular recipe makes two generous portions; it can easily serve three, even four people if you’re not all that hungry. As with most recipes, you can scale it up or down as you’d like, just try and keep the ratios consistent.
The trick to this dish is balance; since there are so few ingredients, all of them have to be in harmony in order for the dish to really shine. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to do. Additionally, unless you’re very confident in your knife skills, get all the ingredients prepped and all your hardware out (mise en place if ya wanna get fancy and technical with it) before you begin. Once things start cooking, it can go pretty fast, so save yourself some stress and burnt food. If you’re a bit more experienced, then you can do most of the prep as you’re bringing the water to boil.
First of all, get a large stock pot full of salted water to a rolling boil. How much salt? Taste the water; it should taste like the ocean. This is critical because it’s your only opportunity to add seasoning to the pasta itself, plus we’re going to use this water a bit later. Add the spaghetti and a teaspoon or so of olive oil to the pot and boil until almost cooked through, about 10 minutes.
Quick aside: let’s talk about oil and pasta for a minute. Some people think that adding olive oil to the boiling pot will help keep the pasta from sticking, and this unfortunately isn’t true. Oil and water don’t mix (well, not easily), so the only way to prevent sticking is to stir the pasta often. Now, what it does do is help prevent boil-overs; the oil disrupts the surface tension of the water, preventing bubbles from stacking on top of themselves, so no boil-over. Additionally, some people say to add olive oil to the cooked pasta to prevent sticking. Technically, this does work. However, it keeps any sauce you have from sticking to the pasta, so it just slides off, not so tasty. To keep your cooked pasta from sticking together, shake and toss it a bit when you drain the water and use it ASAP.
While the water is heating up, warm up a large, nonstick skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add the olive oil and crushed red pepper and let it warm up until the oil just starts to shimmer a bit. Add the shrimp and cook through, about 90 seconds or so on each side. Reduce the heat to medium-low, then remove the shrimp and set aside (I like to put things in the microwave to stay warm for a bit since it’s somewhat insulated).
Next up, the garlic. If you’re able, slice the garlic cloves as thinly as you can, to where you can almost see through them. If your knife skills aren’t quite there yet, then chopping the garlic is fine. Once the olive oil has cooled off enough (if it’s too hot, the garlic will burn quickly), add the garlic and stir frequently until slightly browned, maybe 5 minutes or so.
At this point, ideally you’re ready to drain the pasta just as the garlic is finishing up (don’t forget to save some of the pasta water!). If the pasta is ready before, no worries, just set it aside. If the garlic is ready first, no worries, just kill the heat and carefully add a bit of the pasta water; this will help stop the garlic from cooking and burning.
When everything is ready, add the pasta to the oil and garlic along with the parsley and reserved pasta water and stir a bit until combined. This will create an emulsion between the water and oil (remember when I said oil and water don’t easily mix? Well, this is when they do). If there’s too much water, turn the heat up and boil it out a bit. Squeeze the lemon over the pasta and mix (use a fine-mesh strainer if you have one to keep seeds out, else wrapping the lemon in a paper towel before squeezing works as well). Now taste a noodle and add some salt and pepper until you get the taste you’re looking for. If it doesn’t have a nice brightness to it, then add a bit more lemon as well.
This is almost done! Divide among two bowls, add the shrimp, top with some freshly-grated Parmigiano Reggiano (the good stuff, not the green can stuff), some additional red pepper if you like it hotter than your partner, and eat immediately!
Riffs
- The original recipe doesn’t call for any protein, but I really like cooking shrimp with it since it adds some flavor throughout. You can also saute some boneless, skinless chicken breast instead, add some sauteed scallops at the end, or just keep it vegetarian (I’ll do this if I’m doing it as a side dish).
- A dry, white wine goes nicely with this. If you’re going to have some wine with it, then subbing out a couple of ounces of the pasta water with some of the wine will add some additional acidity and depth of flavor. Be sure to boil it just a bit to get some of the alcohol out of it, else the dish might taste boozy.
- I like it hot, so I put a bit more red pepper. You can of course reduce or omit as well.
- Play around with different herbs. Fresh basil or oregano are very nice as well.
- A nice Caesar salad on the side would be nice as well. Hmm, maybe I should make a recipe for that soon…
Spaghetti Olio e Aglio con Gamberetti
Ingredients
- 8 oz dried spaghetti
- ¼ cup olive oil
- salt
- pepper
- 12 oz shrimp peeled and deveined
- ½ tsp crushed red pepper
- 4 cloves garlic thinly sliced or minced
- ½ lemon
- ¼ c Italian parsley finely chopped
- Parmigiano Italiano finely grated, for garnish
Instructions
- Bring large pot of salted water to a boil, cook spaghetti for 10 minutes or until almost done. Reserve ½ cup pasta water before draining and set aside.
- Season the shrimp with salt and pepper. In a large saute pan, cook the shrimp in the oil and crushed red pepper over medium heat until pink and cooked through, about 3 minutes. Set aside and keep warm.
- Reduce heat on saute pan to medium low. Add garlic and cook until just turning brown, about 5 minutes.
- Add the cooked spaghetti, reserved pasta water, and parsley to the pan and stir to combine. Squeeze lemon and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve in large bowl with the shrimp. Garnish with Parmigiano Reggiano and extra crushed red pepper as desired. Serve immediately.