Thursday, September 5, 2013

Pasta con gamberetti, zucchine e zafferano!

I have a yummy seafood pasta dish for you! This dish was delicious with the mild sweet and earthy flavor of the saffron, it was quite comforting. 

First saute up some chopped onions in a bit of olive oil, until soft and wilted.

Then toss in about a pound of peeled and deveined shrimp, tails on or off its up to you, I went with tails on. Toss them around to coat them in the onions and oil.


Then you'll need some white wine (about a glass full), I used a cheap Pinot Grigio. Pinot Grigio is my preferred cooking wine, it's not too sweet or dry, it's nicely balanced for dishes that call for white wine and it has a much better flavor than a bottle of plain "white cooking wine". Let the wine steam the shrimp and evaporate. Once the wine has evaporated then add the zucchini and the saffron stock (see below)
You'll need some saffron, which can be difficult to find in some areas and a bit expensive, but a little goes a long way. For me, I cannot find saffron already in powder form, I only find the strands and we grind them up in a small mortar and pestle. Dissolve the saffron (about a teaspoon) in some broth (about 3/4 a cup), I used chicken, but if you can find some fish stock that would boost the flavor a bit more. 

Let the zucchini cook in the broth, basting them every so often, until they are soft. 


Once the zucchini have softened add some rich thick cream (about 3/4 a cup) and some chopped fresh parsley. If the sauce is too runny you can add some cornstarch to thicken it up.
Typically you would eat this with linguine but as my pantry was fresh out we went with some tricolor rotini. 
And after dinner we had "Kinder"! I had a kinder for the first time when I was in Italy, it's rare to find it in the US, I'm not sure why because they are fantastic. We happened to see them at the grocery store the last time we  were there and stocked up with a few boxes. I will be sad when they are gone, I'll have to hunt them down again.

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