Shrimp Arrabbiata

Featured Ingredient:

Diced Tomatoes

Arrabiata is Italian for angry.  The angry part of the dish refers to heat from the crushed red pepper. If you are like me, and not a big fan of spicy, you might only throw in a couple of red pepper flakes, so your dish will end up at best mildly miffed.

This recipe was inspired by a March 2007 issue of Cooking Light. It's another quick fix dinner... where the biggest work is in the prep.

Once you are done chopping, mincing, and grinding... the cooking process is rather fast. So if you have some appliances that can help you out with this, put them to work and get finished plates to your table even faster.  If you plan ahead, this can be put together in no time when you get home.

Shrimp Arriabbiata - 4 servings

1 16 oz. package fresh fettucine
2 tbsp olive oil divided
16 oz. raw shrimp thawed and deveined* (see note below)
Lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup chopped onion
3 large garlic cloves or about 2 tsps finely chopped garlic
1/2 tsp crushed fennel seeds (you can break these up using a rolling pin, mortar and pestle or a small electric grinder
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (optional - if you like heat or black pepper if not so much)
1.5 oz prosciutto diced
2 14.5 oz cans tomatoes undrained (I used diced for sauciness and 1 stewed for texture.  You can use any combination)
2 tbsps chopped fresh basil

Put water on the boil and add 1 tsp of salt.  Put on pasta to cook at Step 3.

1. Thaw shrimp and squeeze a little fresh lemon juice over them just before cooking.

2. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high  heat.  Add shrimp, saute for 3 minutes until pink but not completely cooked through.  Remove shrimp from pan.

3. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of oil and add onion, garlic, crushed fennel seeds, pepper (red or black depending on your heat preference) and prosciutto to pan, saute 1 minute.  Stir in tomatoes, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  Cook 3 minutes.  Return shrimp to pan and cook another 2 minutes or so until shrimp is cooked through.  Taste sauce and adjust seasoning. Garnish with basil.

Another alternative:  Use 8 oz. of shrimp and 8 oz. sweet Italian sausage (in this case omit the prosciutto).  Cook sausage first, set aside and keep warm and reincorporate it at the end.

NOTE BELOW: *Most shrimp that you buy at fish markets or in your grocery store has been previously frozen anyway.  Save yourself the markup and buy a bag of frozen shrimp.  Shrimp in these bags are normally flash frozen very soon after they are harvested, so the thawed shrimp in the fish case may be no fresher than the ones in the freezer next to it.  You can even find shrimp that have already been deveined and save yourself some time there as well. Since they are small, they can be thawed quickly under cool running water.  Then let them drain until they don't feel so solid anymore.   If you are not ready to use them by this time.  Put them in the fridge until ready to use.  Double check your package for instructions.

Shrimp Arrabbiata

You should be very happy with the end result of this "angry" little dish.