No Food in the Library: "Shrimp Scampi"

Christmas Eve for Italian Americans traditionally features a lot of fish. I’m sure you heard of the 7 fishes. At my family event, it’s a bit more like 14 fishes, two pastas and a whole lot of wine. One simple, famous, dish we eat every year is “Shrimp Scampi.”  I put that in quotations, because Scampi  are prawns, and its rare that there are prawns in American “Shrimp Scampi”

Mary Ann Esposito, home cook, TV personality and the publisher of many books calls it like it is. “Pan-Cooked Shrimp in Garlic and Wine Sauce” on pg 236 of Ciao Italia breaks features one of my favorite versions of the recipe. According to the Recipe, it serves for. But Ms. Esposito is Italian for reals, so it serves more. Put it over pasta, like I like, and it’ll serve even more.

Ingredients:

4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

4 pounds shelled and deveined large shrimp

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup dry white wine (Oh what ever will you do with the rest?)

1/3 minced flat leaf parsly

1 teaspoon seasalt

Juice of 1 large lemon

Instructions:

·         Divide olive oil into two separate sauté pans.

·         Heat the oil over medium head.

·         Put half the shrimp and half the garlic in each pan.

·         Sauté very quickly over high heat until it turns pink.

·         Add ½ cup of wine to each pan and lower the heat to medium

·         Cook just long enough that the shrimp are cooked through

·         Divide and stir in parsley.

·         Season with a pinch of salt each. Transfer shrimp to serving dish and sprinkle with lemon juice.