Creamy Cajun Shrimp Pasta
Normally on Friday nights, I pick up takeout for my wife and me after the kids eat. On occasion, I feel like cooking, even after a long week at work. Well, tonight was that night! We couldn’t decide what to get for takeout, so why not save the money and make something a bit better?
Now, I knew what I wanted: shrimp, pasta, cream sauce, and Cajun flavors, but I didn’t have a recipe handy for what I wanted, and nothing I saw online looked like what I wanted. So, let’s create one!
This dish is seriously simple, uses (mostly) very inexpensive ingredients, and is a straight flavor bomb. This is also a nice introduction to Cajun flavors. Cajun (and its close cousin Creole) cooking originated in Plantation-Era Louisiana during the 19th century. It is a combination of French cuisine (from the Acadians migrating from Northeaster Canada in the 18th century) and African flavors from African-American slaves. Notably:
- French cooking emphasizes mirepoix: sauteed onions, celery, and carrots. Cajun cooking emphasizes the trinity: sauteed onions, celery, and bell peppers.
- Both make heavy use of roux, which is a paste made from oil and flour, to thicken and flavor sauces.
WARNING: Math Alert!
For the longest time, I always wondered how people managed to create recipes. If you’re one of those people, read on! If not, then there’s nothing to see here.
The trick is getting the ratios down. It’s easier than it looks, I promise.
- Pasta: 2 ounces per person for a side dish or light dinner, 4 ounces per person for a very hearty meal. In this case, I went right in the middle.
- Protein: 4-6 ounces uncooked weight of protein per person.
- Trinity: 2 parts onion, 1 part celery, 1 part bell pepper (any color is fine, and each adds a slight nuance to the flavor).
- Onion: half an onion for every 2-4 servings.
- Garlic: 4 cloves of garlic for each medium-sized onion (or slightly more if you want to bring it).
- Roux: 1 part fat/oil to 1 part flour.
- Sauce: 1 cup liquid for each 1 tablespoon of fat (or every 2 tablespoons of roux). Also, 1 cup of liquid for every 4 ounces of pasta.
So, when I was creating this recipe, here’s how I did the math:
- I knew I wanted 3 ounces of pasta for each person, so 6 ounces total.
- Since 1 cup of sauce is needed for every 4 ounces of pasta, I needed 1.5 cups of liquid.
- Since I had 1.5 cups of liquid, I needed 1.5 tablespoons each of fat and flour for my roux.
- It’s not easy to work with a quarter of an onion, so I used a half onion, which needed 1 small bell pepper and 1 stalk of celery for the proper trinity recipe.
- I used 3 cloves of garlic instead of 2. Sue me.
- I needed 12 ounces of protein, and the Argentinian red shrimp at the store looked great.
This sounds way more complicated than it is, I promise.
I’ve scaled this recipe for 2 generous servings and can easily be scaled up or down.
Creamy Cajun Shrimp Pasta
Ingredients
- 6 oz penne pasta
- 12 oz shrimp peeled, deveined, tails removed
- salt
- pepper
- 1 ½ tbsp extra virgin olive oil divided
- 1 tbsp butter
- ½ whole white onion diced
- 1 stalk celery diced
- 1 whole green bell pepper diced, seeds removed
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 ½ tbsp white flour
- ½ c white wine dry
- ½ c chicken stock reduced sodium
- ½ c heavy cream
- 2 tsp Cajun seasoning
- 2 tbsp parsley chopped
- 4 tbsp Parmigiano Reggiano grated
Instructions
- Cook penne according to package instructions in salted water. Reserve ½ cup pasta water. Drain.
- Meanwhile, preheat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper. Add 1 tbsp of the extra virgin olive oil. Cook about 2 minutes on each side until done. Remove shrimp from pan and keep warm.
- In the same pan, add the remaining olive oil and butter. Add the white onion, celery, and bell pepper with a pinch of salt. Saute over medium heat until almost soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sautee an additional minute. Add the flour to make a roux and cook about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Turn up the heat to high. Add the white wine and whisk to combine with the roux. Once it begins to simmer, add the chicken stock and Cajun seasoning, then let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the heavy cream and parsley, then taste and season with salt, pepper, and additional Cajun seasoning if desired, and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down to medium, add the cooked pasta, and mix thoroughly. If the sauce is too thick, add some of the reserved pasta water.
- Divide the pasta and sauce between two bowls. Add the shrimp on top of the pasta. Add Parmigiano Reggiano. Serve hot.
