Shrimp, garlic, white wine and parsley get together with just enough butter for a rich, indulgent flavor in easy-to-make Shrimp Scampi with Fettuccine. Recipe below.
Coming from the ocean as they do, it’s fairly safe to assume that shrimp can swim. And if you look at most recipes for shrimp scampi, they apparently love to swim in butter. I make this classic dish so infrequently that I always forget this about it. Guess I’m so focused on the shrimp, garlic and parsley—for me, these are the ingredients that define the dish.
But when the hankering for shrimp scampi hit last weekend and I started looking at recipes, there it was. One recipe called for five tablespoons of butter, along with 1/4 cup of olive oil—more than half a cup of fat for a pound of shrimp. This was typical. And another recipe called for 3/4 cup of butter [12 tablespoons! 1-1/2 sticks!] for a pound and a half of shrimp.
Don’t get me wrong. I love cooking with butter. It imparts a rich flavor to foods and a luxurious, silky texture to sauces that only it can deliver. But while I usually agree with Mae West that “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful,” sometimes it’s just, well, too much.
So I decided to see how much I could ease up on the butter [and fat in general] and still have have my shrimp scampi taste satisfyingly rich. I ended up with a mix of two tablespoons each of butter and olive oil. Still not a skinny minnie recipe, but since it makes four servings, that’s a tablespoon of fat per serving, minus whatever stays in the pan and serving bowl. Not bad. And please don’t try to convince me or yourself that you can achieve the same taste with butter-flavored Pam cooking spray. You’ll just make me sad.
Shrimp Scampi with Fettuccine
Makes 4 servings
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb peeled and deveined shrimp [see Kitchen Notes]
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes [see Kitchen Notes]
1/2 cup dry white wine
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound fettuccine [see Kitchen Notes]
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Bring a large pot of water to a boil for pasta as you prep the other ingredients. This dish cooks very quickly once you start, so make sure you have everything ready.
Cook pasta in boiling water until just tender, according to package instructions. When pasta is about 4 minutes from doneness, heat a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil and sauté shrimp, turning over once, until just cooked through, about 2 minutes. Transfer shrimp to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Add garlic, red pepper flakes, wine, salt and pepper to pan and cook, stirring occasionally, 1 minute. Add butter to skillet, stirring until melted, and return shrimp to pan, stirring to coat with butter and garlic mixture. Remove skillet from heat.
Drain pasta, reserving 1 cup pasta cooking water. Toss pasta with shrimp mixture and chopped parsley in large bowl, adding some of reserved cooking water if pasta seems too dry. Divide among four shallow bowls and serve.
Kitchen Notes
De-tails, de-tails. I’ve said this before and I know I’ll say it again: I don’t know what the deal is with leaving tails on shrimp these days, but unless it’s finger food or meant to be cooked in the shell, don’t. It may look more elegant to some to leave the tail on, but there’s nothing elegant about picking up food that’s not meant to be finger food or, worse yet, picking bits of shrimp tails from your mouth as you eat. Lose the tails, please.
Pepper flakes: Be careful, they’re hot. The red pepper flakes add a nice bit of spicy zing to the dish, that along with the wine, tempers some of the buttery richness. They’re always a little more fiery than I give them credit for being, though, so know what level is right for you. In the recipe, I called for 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon. I used somewhere between the two, maybe 1/3 teaspoon, and it delivered a nice bite.
Keep the pasta on the hefty side. For this dish, I like broad, flat fettuccine noodles. They twirl nicely on the fork and hold their own with the chunky shrimp when it comes to mouthfeel. Linguine also works well for the same reasons. I’ve seen recipes that call for capellini, but that just seems like a mismatch to me.
Also this week in Blue Kitchen, 5/21/2008
Small bites. The worst and best drinks for you, a cool kitchen tool and a sharp new blog, at WTF? Random food for thought.
Groove globally, listen locally. Locavore, schmocavore. Join my locahear movement and get out there and support local live music, at What’s on the kitchen boombox?
It’s been years since I’ve had shrimp scampi, and I had no idea that the original recipes called for so much butter. Yikes. Thanks for lightening it up!
That is the kind of pasta dish that makes Joao drool. He loves seafood, Terry!
i can’t believe it took so much butter either – shrimp alfredo anyone? This looks fabulous a perfect dish as we start entering summer.
Whoa! This looks great. I love when you can naturally “lighten” up foods and they still taste just as good.
I’ve got this recipe bookmarked to try. My husband loves shrimp scampi, but I can’t stand all the grease. I think you may have saved the day with a happy medium! Thank you!
this is one of my favorite quick dinners, with pretty much the same amount of butter (but double the garlic).
sometimes we do the same shrimp/garlic/pepper/butter thing, but serve it over asparagus, yummy.
indeed, shrimps should swim in butter 🙂 this looks lovely!
Lydia—And the thing is, a little butter goes a long way in delivering a nice buttery taste. No need to overdo.
Patricia—Joao loves seafood and meat? Sounds like someone I need to sit down to dinner with.
Katerina—Thanks! And yep, alfredo sauce is another classic way to drown something in loads of fat and calories.
Kari—For me, lightening it up actually improves the flavor. I used to consider lettuce just a vehicle for lots of dressing, for example. Once I started easing up on the dressing, I discovered the more subtle delights of the greenery.
Mary—You hit the nail on the head. As wonderfully rich as restaurant shrimp scampi tastes, I’ve always been ultimately left with the sensation of greasiness at the end. Let me know what you and your husband think of this lighter approach.
Michelle—Serving this over asparagus is absolutely brilliant! Interestingly, I had considered adding asparagus cut into 1-inch pieces to this dish, but decided to stick with the classic version. But doing away with the pasta altogether takes it a whole new place.
diva—Well, maybe they don’t need to swim. Maybe they can just wade in the shallow end of the butter pool.
I agree about the butter – gotta have it but a little can go a long way. The same with risotto, so many people put in lots – I use 1 – 2 teaspoons… (but lots of wine)
Oooh, I just read the bit about the asparagus….Yum!
Thanks for the double comment, katie. And I’m right there with you on the asparagus!
You should tell us how you really feel about shrimp tails, Terry. 😉 And that is a lovely blue dish for a lovely pasta.
That shrimp scampi looks good! I like the idea of serving it on asparagus.
The photo looks so tasty! Love the delft blue china dish.
I agree with you about leaving the tails on the shrimp. If you’re gonna go to the trouble of shelling ’em, you might as well take the tail off too!
I love the tagline on your blog too, btw.
Hi, Susan. I’ve always felt what’s the fun of having opinions if you don’t share them. Right?
Kevin—Thanks! And the asparagus tip is a prime example of why to read the comments on posts.
Helmut—The dish is one of a handful of flea market/junk shop/antique shop finds we have, all acquired back when you could actually find flow blue in such places.
Marvin—Welcome to Blue Kitchen! Your shrimp and fava bean recipe looks pretty intriguing. And I see you made sensible use of the shells, making a shrimp stock with them.
Mmmm! Scampi. One of the best foods ever! Lighter on the calories? Yes please! And I am totally stealing Michelle’s idea of serving it over asparagus. The tails? I’m torn on that one…the shells impart such good flavor, but are a pita to try and wrangle while attempting some semblance of table manners. lol 🙂
Its a noble goal to cut back on the fat–I was merrily making a buerre blanc the other day and I didn’t think twice about how much butter I was going to be eating that night until after I ate it all…at which point I thought I should start exercising, lol. But my belated butter guilt aside, what I’m trying to say is that this looks really good!
canarygirl—Yeah, entire shrimp shells can add something to the flavor in the right dish with the right technique, but I think what the tails add is negligible for the extra eating effort they cause with a dish like this. I think the current trend for leaving them on is purely visual in origin.
Mike—Sometimes for occasional indulgences, I say fat be damned. But in the case of scampi, I think the full fat version is actually less appealing for its fatty/greasy aftertaste.
Yep, but no sweets. You’d have to eat his dessert, too. Like Valentina (from Trem Bom) and I did when the 3 of us had dinner together last year. 🙂
Umm. This looks amazing.
I sometimes add a few T of chicken or veggie stock to make up for the butter I take out because I get scared of things not coating properly… nice that you’ve done the work for me to figure out what actually works in terms of reduction!
it looks really good lm goin to give it a go l hope my mum likes.
can someone tell me is it easy to make for a young kid in there teens??????