Summer in Arizona doesn’t always make you go “Pasta!”. But something bright and lemony sounded good. Longing for the super-delicious Bavette al Cedro at PastaBar in downtown Phoenix, Kari has been wanting to make lemon pasta at home more; and adding the shrimp made me happy. Very simple. Here’s what we did.
- 1 lb fresh pasta (ours wasn’t homemade, but the store-bought fresh stuff)
- 1 lb medium white shrimp, uncooked tail-on
- ½ cup olive oil
- couple fresh lemons, for juice and zest
- fresh garlic, slivered
- fresh basil, chiffonade (it’s easy to grow!)
- pecorino romano cheese, grated
- kosher salt
- fresh ground fine black pepper
You just cook the shrimp very quickly in hot olive oil with garlic slivers, salt&pepper and set aside. Then whisk together the olive oil, juice from 2 generous lemons, zest from 1-2 lemons, the basil shreds, a generous amount of romano cheese and more fresh black pepper. Pour a little of the mixture into your serving dish to coat the bottom, throw in the pasta and the shrimp and then pour more of the mixture on top. This allows you to toss gently and coat everything without chewing up the soft pasta. You may not need all the sauce mixture depending on how much juice you get. Also, fresh pasta probably only calls for about 3-4 minutes of boil time. Do even less.
That’s about it! Enjoy a fresh summer pasta :)
WANT