Scrumptious Shrimp Pasta

Linguine con Gamberi, Peperone Rosso & Pomodorini

Linguini with Shrimps, Red Pepper & Cherry Tomatoes

How about a nice plate of pasta? No, let me rephrase that... How about an absolutely phenomenal plate of pasta? Because that's what this nice, simple, plateful of pasta turned out to be!

With not much left in the way of fresh produce in my fridge this Friday evening, as is always the case, I delved into my freezer and brought out a handful of thes gorgeous shrimp and decide to improvise an easy meal using them... But who knew it would end up tasting so good?!!?

This took around 30 minutes in all to make, but the little bit of extra time I dedicated to boiling up a little stock from the shells of the shrimp and a few vegetables was well worth the effort! This was the secret that transformed a simple pasta dish into something sublime!

For my nice, big, single serving I used 5 shrimps, 1 small carrot, 1 stalk of celery, 1 spring onion, a good handful of cherry tomatoes (these were particularly small ones!), 1 small red pepper, fresh parsley and basil, salt, pepper and olive oil.

The rich sweetness of the pepper and tomatoes really comes through in this dish, with the "soffritto " of onion, celery and carrot giving it a strong flavor base to build on... And all of this of course in combination with the herbs and the shrimp... Oh boy! This was really simple... But oh so special!

The first thing I did was to prepare a little bit of stock. I did this by briefly frying the shrimp shells together with half of the onion, carrot and celery, then by deglazing the saucepan, topping it up with water and then boiling it at a low simmer for a good 20 minutes, whilst I took care of the other preparations.

I finely chopped the other half of the spring onion, the carrot and the celery and fried these in olive oil until they softened up and then added the tomatoes and a few leaves of basil. 

Whilst these were sizzling away, I popped my pasta into the saucepan to start it boiling in the background... Multitasking is everything of course!

After around 5 minutes, the vegetables were nicely cooked and the pasta was just beginning to soften... Time to bring them together to let them get to know each other!

I drained the pasta off and added it to the frying pan, stirring it in with the peppers and tomatoes and getting everything nicely coated.

I then pored the hot shrimp broth through a sieve and added it to the frying pan, immediately deglazing it and bringing out all of the excellent flavors.

And then I stirred and stirred until the pasta cooked down and soaked up all of the juices and began transforming them indeed into nice sauce of sorts, with absolutely no effort at all!

After 3-4 minutes in the frying pan with the hot broth, I added the shrimps and a good sprinkle of parsley and continued cooking and stirring and tossing the pasta for the next 3-4 minutes, until the shrimps were perfectly juicy and cooked-through and delicious!

Served up with a light drizzle of olive oil, a little more fresh parsley and a last grind of pepper... This was really quite a treat after quite a nasty week! Yummy!

This is simple food to fill your heart and soul and not only your tummy!

Some pictures really do say a thousand words! And this is one of them!

Come to think of it... So is this one too!