Garlic Noodles with Shrimp

Brit sent me this recipe a few weeks back and I immediately agreed that it looked delicious. The original recipe calls for prawns, instead of shrimp, but we had conveniently just purchased a bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp the night before. Buying frozen (and especially fresh) shrimp from anywhere besides the wholesaler we had gone to would be too far out of our price range, but with the shellfish purchased, we were both excited to give this dish a try.

Garlic Noodles with Shrimp

Serves 3

8 oz linguini (we ended up cooking all of it, but only using 3/4 of the package)
1/2 lb shellfish (we used 40 of the fairly small frozen shrimp we purchased)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar (original recipe called for 1/2 tsp)
2 tsp pepper (original recipe called for 1 tsp)
4-5 tbsp garlic, minced (original recipe called for 3 tbsp)
3 tbsp butter, divided (original recipe called for French buerre demi sel..... yeah right i'm going to buy that....)
3 green onions, chopped (original reciped called for 1 green onion)
Grated parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta, as the package instructs, until al dente. Drain and set aside. In the meantime, marinade the shrimp with the oyster sauce, salt, sugar, pepper, and 1/3 of the minced garlic for 15 minutes.

In a wok over medium heat, melt 1 tbsp butter with 1/3 of the minced garlic. Add the marinated shrimp and stir fry for 3-4 minutes. We were using pre-cooked shrimp, so this step is purely to cook the flavors together. The original recipe indicates that this step should be used to cook the shellfish until they are half-way done. After a few minutes, remove the shrimp to a bowl and set aside.

Melt the remaining butter with the garlic and add in the pasta. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes, tossing the pasta until it's well coated with the garlic sauce. Add back in the shrimp and cook an additional 3-4 minutes (if using raw shellfish, make sure it is fully cooked at this point). Mix in the chopped green onions and serve. Garnish with the parmesan cheese.

We also garnished our dish with steamed broccoli we bought from our farmer's market that had been quickly tossed with salt, pepper, and white wine vinegar.

Oh wow. You have got to try this dish. No real surprise though; it's shrimp cooked with butter and garlic! We both ate our full plate and went back for another full serving. That was a mistake as we felt stuffed after and we should have just eaten another half serving at the most. Adding the additional amount of pasta, that we didn't incorporate, could help this dish stretch a little further and provide for guests or leftovers, but we'd need to add more shrimp at the beginning. Additionally, I need to peel the shrimp tails off before cooking so that the shrimp can be eaten without having to use your fingers.