We were having a bit of a seafood feast for dinner; mussels and steamers in a tomato and garlic white wine sauce, and I wanted a little sumpin’ sumpin’ extra to kind of push the meal up to and mebbe just a wee, tiny bit over the edge…
Scampi.
My motto has always been that more garlic is more better, so a bit of scampi was the natural way to go; and this baked recipe, from the barefoot contessa is a winner!
First, a note: the contessa calls for using two pounds of fresh shrimp in the shell, then deveining, butterflying, and (mostly) peeling them, leaving just the tails on. I don’t have time for that, and am not a huge fan of tossing shrimp tails during dinner; so I used a 12 ounce bag of frozen raw, peeled, and already deveined shrimp (thawed), and skipped the butterflying. And I’ll do the same next time, but will then be using two, 12 ounce, bags – just because it was so darned good! On to da scampi:
INGREDIENTS
•12 oz shrimp (go for 24 oz, you’ll be happy)
•3 tbsp olive oil
•2 tbsp dry white wine
•1/2 tsp + 2 tsp Sea salt
•1/4 tsp + 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
•1/2 tsp Aleppo pepper
•1-1/2 stick (12 tbsp) unsalted butter
•4 tsp minced fresh garlic (4 cloves)
•1/4 cup minced shallots
•3 tbsp minced fresh parsley leaves
•1/4 tsp dried rosemary leaves
•1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
•1 tsp grated lemon zest
•2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
•1 large egg yolk
•2/3 cup panko crumbs
Let the butter soften at room temperature, then mash together with the garlic, shallots, parsley, rosemary, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, lemon juice, egg yolk, panko, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 425º.
Thaw the shrimp, then toss with the olive oil, wine, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, and 1/2 tsp Aleppo pepper – I did this in the dish I was going to bake the scampi in, but you can use a bowl, if you prefer. Allow to rest at room temperature while the oven comes up to temperature – or at least 15 minutes.
Toss the shrimp in the marinade one last time to coat, then pat or arrange into a single layer in the baking dish – drizzling any extra olive oil mixture over all if you’ve used a bowl to marinate.
Spread the butter mixture more or less evenly over the top of the shrimp, then bake for ten to twelve minutes, until the shrimp is nicely pink and hot and bubbly.
You can serve the shrimp now, with fresh lemon wedges, if you like, or, if you prefer a slightly browner top, pop the baking pan under the broiler for a minute.
Serve over rice or pasta, or as I did with those mussels and clams and crusty French bread.
A fine feast dinner, and really simple enough to toss together that you could easily make it for every day!
Well… mebbe except for that stick-and-a-half of butter.
Of course, if you’re gonna go all out and have the shrimp and the butter, you may as well wrap up your dinner in an equally spectacular way.
Might I suggest Outrageous(ly) AWESOME Brownies? We had ours plain, but there’s no reason you couldn’t top ’em with some good vanilla ice cream and then mebbe drizzle a bit of fresh, hot espresso over all.
After all, as my American Express Day Planner once (interestingly, I thought) quoted Nikita Khrushchev as saying:
“Life is short, live it up!”