Fettucini with shrimp



Bacon will go on top of the shrimp and pasta so two thick strips were cut and fried and set aside.


Have you noticed how it's hard to make bacon without eating some? That's a good reason to make extra. 

The dough starts out with one egg. Half the shell is used to measure water so choose a good half of the broken shell that won't leak. Or else just forget about the shell and add however much water you wish. Pasta dough doesn't require an egg anyway. I only put them in there because I want to.



The yellow dots underneath the bubbles are lecithin particles. Eventually they melt with a lot of beating. I put them in there to see what would happen. As far as I can see, nothing happened. The red and orange specks are dry chile flakes that I picked apart from little packages of various dry chiles. I use those flakes for everything. I am going through them faster than I imagined I would, and when they run out I will do it all over again except the next time the mixture will be different because there is no possible way I can match it exactly. 

A pasta dough purist would not put lecithin nor chile flakes nor salt nor pepper into their dough, but I do not know why, and I am no purist. Plus there is nobody here to boss me around and I wouldn't listen to them anyway even if they did. 

The dough relaxed for twenty minutes while I had myself a Pepsi. The shrimp was soaking in the iced brine the whole time. 

Now the fun part starts where the various elements begin to come together




The sauce is one tablespoon of the bacon fat with about maybe one, possibly two ounces of Marsala. Then cream is added along with salt/pepper, and a few herbs. 


The pasta is added to the sauce in the pan, then the shrimp to heat through.



A little bit of nutmeg grated over the whole thing because it goes great with cream. 

There is no cheese in this dish, and I do kind of miss it a little bit. 

Once again, I heard a chef, a judge this time for the Chopped show on FoodNetwork say to his fellow judges and for the cameras, "One absolute RULE that EVERYONE agrees is NEVER EVER add cheese to shellfish. It gives it a 'funky' flavor." And I thought to myself in that moment and in the privacy of my living room where all was quiet and peaceful, "Oh, FUCK OFF, you mouse!"  Man, that makes me mad. Then he repeated it to the competing chef when they chopped him, and this chef who had not yet been chopped, upon listening patiently but unrepentantly to the dictum delivered him then said, "Well, I make the things that I like," and then I thought of his response, "How tactful." You see, I'd seriously be tempted to say, if not actually say it, "You know, Judge, I am not beholden to the rules that you live by, nor should I be. And I do not accept that this rule of yours that you hold to be universal among all cooks is so. I would suggest that you have a few words with award-winning chef Frank Bonanno who brought down the house of this very network when he took first place in another competition with his lobster and cheese macaroni, but I'm afraid that having accepted this rule and having lived by it your whole narrow existence and already staked your reputation upon it here that nothing contrary to it can expand that pathetic tiny pea you're using for a brain rattling around  in the otherwise empty space between your ears. You little prick."  A certainty to win an invitation back, don't you agree? 

Oh, wow. I just now realized I forgot to include semolina flour in the pasta dough. I thought something was different. Oh well. It didn't hurt it. 

2 comments:

reader_iam said...

Hi, Chip, sorry for the OT comment. I saw a link on
the art of paper-engineering that brought you to mind. It's here.

I reached that link via a tweet (sorry!) from someone connected with the website called Brain Pickings (subtitled "curating eclectic interestingness from culture's collective brain). I've been dipping into that for weeks, and I really think a lot of it might be right up your alley.

I do NOT have any affiliation with the site or any of its people, just to reassure you. I'm posting this solely because I honestly do think you might enjoy it. I hope it's OK that I posted it in your comments section.

/OT

Unknown said...

I cannot stand that judge. I happen to behold an amazing recipe for a seafood lasagna stuffed to the gills with crab, shrimp, and "yes folks" swiss cheese! I am seriously thinking that the next time I make it, out of spite, I will sprinkle the top of it with raw red onion!
Your blog is great, thank you for sharing.

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