Summer Seafood Pasta — where’s the beach??!
Between the simple and perfectly cooked colorful veggies & the sweet & salty shrimp and scallops ((also perfectly cooked)) – I am not sure there is another bite of food that can blast your mind into summer on the beach than a bite of this pasta dish.
Really, there are quite a few steps to this recipe. But, from my vantage point, there are a lot less steps to preparing this meal than getting myself to the actual beach, ha.
The first thing I did was prepare my pasta dough according to the recipe I have already shared HERE.
The time that passed between the 2 photos above was about 30 seconds. It is really that easy.
For this recipe, I made three batches of pasta dough and allowed them to work their magic in the fridge for a few hours before rolling out, cutting & boiling.
In the meantime, I sliced up the veggies and par-boiled the green beans.
Par-boiling allows the green beans to be completely tender before being added to the sauce. Precooking helps keep the sauce from over cooking, or acquiring a strange flavor during the 10 or 15 minutes it would take to cook the green beans to a tender state.
After the green beans were cooked, I continued chopping my veggies, and set them aside, so they would be ready when it was time to add them to the sauce at the end.
An hour before dinner time, I rolled out the pasta. I had the special treat of getting Zach to cut the pasta into linguini sized strips ((the pasta had been resting for a few hours in the fridge)). That saved me — if you don’t have a Zach to help with this part of the process, just make the pasta dough earlier in the day, allow it to rest for a few hours in the fridge, roll it, cut it, toss it in semolina, place in parchment lined baking sheets and return it to the fridge until ready to boil. See — it’s easy.
Next came time for cooking the shrimp and scallops. My favorite way to cook shrimp is explained in detail HERE.
Perfect every time.
For the scallops, I should have cooked them in my largest braiser – I am not sure what I was thinking. I ended up having to cook them and finish them off in the oven THREE different times. Talk about a time sucker. Not to mention, by the end of the third batch ((which is pictured above)) the pan drippings were nearing — but not quite there — burnt.
I sear one side of the scallops over medium-high flame in equal parts of coconut oil and salted butter, lightly seasoning with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Once I have a good sear on the bottom, I flip them over and place the pan in a 400° oven for 2 minutes to finish them off.
While the shrimp and scallops were going, I was simultaneously boiling batches of pasta and shocking them to stop the cooking.
Once the last batch of scallops was done, I began working on the sauce. I used the same ((too small)) braiser I had used to cook the scallops, pan drippings and all, and added thinly sliced sweet onions and button mushrooms to the hot pan. After five minutes, I simply added a combination of white wine & salted butter and brought the sauce to boil.
At the last minute, I tossed in the raw julienned red bell pepper, the previously par-boiled green beans and the cooked pasta. I gave it all a stir to coat, topped it with the cooked shrimp and scallops and covered it with the lid & turned off the flame to reheat everything.
Two minutes later and dinner was served. I am still looking for the beach with my eyes – but my tastebuds are convinced I was there – if even just for dinner.
- 3 batches of homemade pasta*, reserve cooking water for sauce
- 1 lb fresh green beans, trimmed & cut into 1" pieces
- 1 - 2 t kosher salt for salting boiling water (for green beans)
- 1 1/2 lbs sea scallops
- 1 lb ((40 count)) shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1 T canola oil
- 2 T butter
- 2 T coconut oil
- sea salt
- fresh cracked black pepper
- 1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
- 4 T salted butter
- 10 oz white wine, I used Chardonnay
- 1/2 of a large red bell pepper, julienned into 1" pieces
- 6 to 7 medium button mushrooms, cleaned** and thinly sliced
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- Prepare according to recipe instructions (find link in this blog post).
- Once the pasta dough is resting in the fridge, bring a medium pot of lightly salted water to boil, and place green beans into the boiling water. Boil the green beans for 10-12 minutes.
- While the beens are boiling, prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl 1/3 of the way with ice and the remaining with water. Set the ice bath near the spot you will be draining the beans.
- Test doneness before draining, you want the beans to be slightly crisp but no longer woody & fibrous. Remove the beans from the boiling water and place them in the ice bath. This will stop the cooking process and keep the color of the beans beautifully bright & green. Once beans are chilled, drain and place in the fridge until it is time to cook the pasta.
- After allowing the pasta to rest for about 4 hours, preheat the oven to 400° and place the shrimp in a 9" x 13" baking dish, season with salt & pepper and drizzle 1 T canola oil over the shrimp. Toss the shrimp to coat. Place the shrimp in the preheated oven for 8 to 9 minutes, tossing halfway through cooking. When shrimp has turned pink (and gray colors are gone) remove, cover with foil and set aside.
- While the shrimp is cooking, place 2 T of coconut oil and butter in a large skillet or braiser & heat over medium high flame. Once the skillet is hot, place scallops in the skillet, arranging so they don't touch ((making sure they are cooking on an end)). Season with salt & pepper and sear on one side before flipping. When the scallops have turned medium brown and crisp on the cooking end, flip them over and place in the preheated oven for 2 minutes. Keep a close eye on the scallops, removing them from the oven once they have lost their translucency. Cover along with the cooked shrimp.
- While the seafood is cooking, roll the pasta out -- or have a kitchen helper do this part. ((I used my Kitchen Aid attachment to a thickness of 4, which is a medium thickness. Cut the pasta sheets into strips resembling linguini. Place the pasta into boiling salted water in batches, for 30 seconds and then shock it in a salted ice bath. ((More detailed instructions are found in the original pasta recipe.))
- In the same braiser used to sear scallops, add onions and butter. Cook over medium flame for 5 minutes. Add wine to the skillet and scrape the scallop drippings. Allow the sauce to come to a boil for 3 to 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and peppers, cook for 2 to 3 more minutes. Add pasta water in half cup increments if the sauce evaporates too much. Taste the sauce and season with sea slat and cracked pepper to taste. Add green beans to heat through and toss pasta into the skillet as well, stirring to coat. Place seafood on top of the pasta, place the lid on the skillet and turn the flame off. Allow the pasta sit, covered for 5 minutes before serving to reheat the seafood.
- Serves 6
- *Make pasta according to the recipe linked in the body of this post.
- ** When cleaning mushrooms, in general, wiping with a lightly damp rag will do the trick.