Excuses aside, we haven't been cooking much lately for different reasons, and probably won't be for at least the next month, but when we do, you can be certain we'll be loving it in our new kitchen.
BUTTER!?
Our first road trip together brought us over the entirety of I-80, from the Golden-Gate to the George-Washington. Somewhere along the way, one of us reached into a bag in the back seat and pulled out, of all things, a tiny packet of butter. Many laughs ensued. If you happen to be in our presence when we exclaim this singular word out of context, you'll at least know what's going through our collective mind.
Jes is not a saucy person. She also doesn't like too much sauce with her pasta—something I discovered, and something she suffered, when we visited my great aunt in Southern California. My maternal family has been hugely influential in my love for Italian cuisine, whether cooking it in batches and sharing the wealth or going to some ristorante for most every celebration. Leave it to the Syrian-Americans, however, to be carrying on that tradition.
Anyway, I presume Jes's dislike for such heavily laden, tomato-sauce-smothered pasta is related to her delight in simply buttered pasta. My mother used to do this on occasion, as well; and, to take it further, a misunderstanding during one of my childhood sleepovers once led me to eat dry spaghetti for dinner, to my own chagrin. However, in addition to its simplicity, it gains a 1-Up in my book for preparation time: 10 minutes.
Now, buttered spaghetti is fine enough, but Jes dresses hers up with salt, pepper and garlic powder. It holds quite the appeal on its own, but I leave it to her to craft it. Besides, things always taste better when it belongs to someone else.
Purposed Segregation
Using that dish as a base, I made a meal last year which was pleasing in many ways. If you recall what I'd said regarding my veggie-parfait, I had cooked each ingredient individually only to rejoin them for the final product. The following recipe predates that one, and it lived up to the hope of keeping the elements separated all the way to the plate.
The concept behind it all was to have the flavors of shrimp alfredo without actually melding them together into a coherent sauce layered over dense linguini. I've never made a cream sauce from scratch—though I aspire to undertake the task one day—but this meal kept things as simple as possible.
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| June 22, 2015 - Shrimp Alfredo, Deconstructed |
I'm a believer in pairing a noodle's width with the weight of its sauce. That said, a traditional alfredo sauce matches well with fettucine or linguine, but you'll find no actual sauce here, so I went with Jes's personal favorite: angel hair. A specification of capellini, angel hair is among the thinnest Italian noodles (I've seen much thinner Asian noodles). It's perfect for runny, brothy sauces, and here, its only dressing is butter, grated parmesan, and ground pepper.
Beside that, thinly sliced tomatoes gained some color and texture with a momentary searing in a pan. Charred onions are also a nice flavor add-on (and they happen to remind me of mom's good, old-fashioned London broil, or giddo's kebabs).
Last but not least, hiding in the shadows would be sriracha-crusted shrimp. If you're either confused or intrigued, it was a revisited recipe which you will soon see here: a simple twist on breading shrimp that utilized flavored potato chips. All of my creations with shrimp deserve their own series, but to remain in the recipe at hand, it is enough just to have garlic-butter shrimp, whether such is infused or contains visibly chopped pieces of garlic. Perhaps the flavor would lend itself well to the added texture of a béchamel sauce, thereby setting up a more distinct division of the four elements already present.
In case you couldn't tell, I'm giving myself brilliant ideas worth exploring. I would definitely like to recreate this.
