Spaghetti ai Gamberi ~ Spaghetti with Shrimp

For this week, my theme is European cuisine and I picked Italian. When brainstorming for this week's blog menu, husband mentioned that the mom and pop run Italian restaurant in the neighbor used to serve great gamberi and he use to order it very often when ever he dined there with his colleagues. This restaurant closed few years ago as it was a family run business and the couple were really old. I did not know what gamberi was until I did a Google search.

Spaghetti gamberi is spaghetti with shrimp. There are many recipes online and I found Food52 recipe the simplest of all, with easily available ingredients and uses less tomatoes just like we like.

I tweaked the recipe a bit; marinated shrimp for few minutes, sauteed/grilled shrimp in a pan until cooked, then cooked fresh tomatoes in the same pan along with the shrimp and deglazed it with some cooking wine. It is finished off by tossing cooked spaghetti in shrimp tomato mixture. We liked the recipe and it was your meal thrice in the last 10 days.

Spaghetti ai Gamberi Recipe

Source: Food52
Total Time: 30 - 35 minutes
Preparation: 10 - 15 minutes (time req. to peel and devein shrimp)
Cooking: 20 - 25 minutes
Serves: 1 ½ - 2 (depending on one’s appetite)

Ingredients:

• 1 - 1 ¼ lb Shrimp, 16-20 ct.
• ¾ - 1 tsp. Paprika (adjust to taste)
• ¾ tsp. Salt (adjust to taste)
• 8 oz Spaghetti (I used thin, no. 11 spaghetti)
• 3 tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil (can use Olive oil also. I tried with both the oils and could not notice much difference)
• 3 - 4 Ripe Cherry Tomatoes, cut into 2 (I used Campari tomatoes cut into 4)
• 2 large Garlic Cloves chopped
• 1 ½ - 2 tbsp. White Wine (I used cooking white wine from Whole Foods)
• 2 - 3 Sprigs of Basil, coarsely chopped or use as it is

Preparation:

• Peel and devein shrimp. Wash and rub paprika and salt into it. Keep it aside until ready to use.
• Bring water to a boil in a pot to cook spaghetti. When water is boiling, add about 1 tablespoon of salt, spaghetti and cook until spaghetti is al dente or follow the instructions on the back of the box on how to cook spaghetti. On my stove, it took about 13 - 15 minutes.
• Once the spaghetti is cooked, drain the spaghetti and reserve about ¾ cup of water in which it was cooked.
• While the spaghetti is cooking, in a big saute pan, preferably a 12” pan, heat oil.
• Add shrimp and saute until golden brown on one side. Turn the shrimp and cook on the other side. This will take about 3 minutes per side.
• Add garlic, tomatoes and cook for another 4-5 minutes until tomatoes are soft and mushy. Keep crushing the tomatoes with the back of the spoon.
• Add white wine and let the wine evaporate completely. Taste the mixture and adjust seasoning.
• Add cooked spaghetti, some of the reserved water in which spaghetti was cooked and carefully toss, taking care not to break the spaghetti. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
• Sprinkle chopped basil and serve immediately.

Note:

• Start cooking the shrimp once spaghetti is added to boiling water. By the time the spaghetti is cooked, shrimp and tomato mixture will also be ready. I would recommend planning it in such a way that the shrimp tomato mixture is ready before spaghetti is al dente.

This day in 2014 - Mango Shrikhand