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This week I’m taking a break from the Panamanian recipes series to try out something different. The menu this week is spicy shrimp pasta two ways: one with sun dried tomatoes and chives, and the other with creamy mushroom sauce and fresh basil. Besides the occasional chicken pesto rotini, which I’ve never made from scratch, I normally don’t do pasta. For some reason I’ve always been scared of doing pasta, the way it’s supposed to be done, because I thought that I’ll would fail completely and it would be too much for my ego to take. To my surprise, I was very happy with the end result regardless of the many little incidents along the way. What incidents you may ask? Well, I’m referring to the multiple trips that I took to the grocery store because I couldn’t make up my mind (this is why it’s pasta two ways); the second-degree burns on my right hand because I kept forgetting that a cast iron skillet doesn’t have a human-safe handle; and finally how I couldn’t taste anything for the next couple of days since I burned half my taste buds. This unfortunately came to pass as I was determinedly tasting the pasta every 30 seconds in an effort not to cook it all the way through.

I had an awesome time cooking this meal and sharing it with all the interns. Give it a try, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Ingredients
• 2 pounds of shrimps previously cleaned
• Fettuccini pasta (enough for 8 people)
• 1 cup of chopped Sun dried tomatoes
• 2 cups of Portobello mushrooms (it can be just 1, I used 2. I really like mushrooms)
• 1 cup of chopped onions
• 1 garlic head
• A handful of Fresh basil (roughly chopped)
• ½ cup of fresh chives
• ½ cup of fresh thyme
• 1 cup of dried oregano
• 1 box of vegetable stock
• 1 cup of dried basil
• 1 ½ cup of half and half
• 3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons of paprika
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt
• Hot sauce
• Pepper

Instructions

1. Season the shrimp with the paprika, cayenne pepper, ½ cup of EVOO, and salt to taste. You can add some drops of your favorite hot sauce if you really like the heat. Let them sit for 30 minutes.

2. Heat a cast iron skillet (or any skillet) over medium on the stove. Cover the bottom of the skillet with EVOO together with 4 garlic cloves, mildly mashed. This will seasoned the oil which later is going to be used to sauté the shrimps. Let the garlic cook on the skillet for 8-10 minutes (keep an eye on then, and reduce the heat if they start burning too fast).

3. With some paper towels, pat the shrimps until they are mostly dry. Sauté the dry shrimps on the same skillet where you cooked the garlic. Clean the shrimps of any excess oil and set them aside for a while. The shrimps should not take more than a couple of minutes (2 minutes medium high, 2.5-3 minutes medium) on each side. This will really depend on the size of your shrimps. I bought mine on the local fish market and I got them all different sizes so I had to cook them individually. Don’t worry if you feel that it’s not cooked all the way, they are going to go back to the skillet once the sauces are ready and will finish cooking then if they need to.

4. In the same skillet cook 1 cup of onions, 6 garlic cloves chopped, ½ cup of dried oregano, ½ cup of dried basil and salt and pepper to taste for 5 minutes or until the onions are clear. In the mean time, grab another skillet, cover the bottom with some EVOO and preheat it over medium heat.

5. Grab half of your onion-garlic dried herbs mixture and put it on the other skillet. The new skillet is going to be creamy mushroom sauce and fresh basil, and the original skillet is going to be sun dried tomato and chives.

6. In the original skillet throw all the sun dried tomatoes and cook them for a couple of minutes. Once soft, add 2 cups of vegetable stock, the rest of the dried oregano and taste it to see if it needs salt or/and pepper. Let it cook for 15 -20 minutes over medium heat. Make sure to keep an eye on this in case it dries out.

7. On the second skillet cook the mushrooms until they are tender.

8. Start boiling the salted water where you are going to cook the pasta.

9. Once the mushrooms are cooked, lower the heat a little and add the 1 ½ cups of half and half. Also add the rest of the dried basil, fresh thyme, and taste it to see if it needs more salt or/and pepper. Cook it for 10 minutes over medium heat.

10. Cook the pasta in salted water with a pinch of olive oil so it doesn’t stick. Make sure to get it out of the water when is almost al dente. This means that if in the package says that it takes 8 minutes to be al dente; you pull the pasta at the 7th minute. We are gonna finish the pasta in its respective sauce, this way we can flavor the pasta itself with the flavor of the sauce.

11. At this point the sauces should be ready, taste them for seasoning and desire thickness. Add equal amounts of pasta and shrimp to each sauce. Add the chopped fresh basil to the mushroom sauce pasta, and the fresh chives to the sun dried tomato sauce. Cook them for a couple more minutes; let the pasta absorb some of the sauce. They are ready to be served after this.




* Photos courtesy of Clayton Cohen.