Molto Delizioso! Shrimp Saltimbocca Pasta
Have an abundance of sage hangin' around post-Thanksgiving? I got a bit overzealous myself and basically bought an entire bush's worth of sage. It really is an under-used herb. Why does Thanksgiving get to have all the fun?
One of my favorite uses of sage is for saltimbocca. When in Rome (ha!), we had one of those delightful meals that will linger on in my mind forever. Sure, the atmophere was all so alluring with its dim lighting, thousand-year-old stone walls, Italian being uttered in every direction, the wine flowing like the salmon of Capistrano... Maybe anything tastes good in such picturesque surroundings, but I literally can still taste the saltimbocca we had that night. It was one of the first dishes we tried to recreate when we came home from our trip.
Traditionally, saltimbocca is made with veal, wrapped in prosciutto and sage. Today's recipe is no where near traditional, but my own very deconstructed take on saltimbocca with ingredients I had on hand. You can't include "deconstructed" in too many recipe titles, though, without sounding a little too big for your britches. So enjoy this simple pasta dish inspired by an entirely different dish, made with some semblence of similar ingredients but also some new ones (see, that's just too long for a recipe title). And if you made the sage pesto I posted last week, you're one step ahead of the game!
Shrimp Saltimbocca Pasta
Serves: 2
Preparation Time: 20 minutes (30 minutes if you need to make the pesto still)
Ingredients:
1 lb. shrimp, peeled & deveined
2-3 tbsp. sage pesto (recipe here)
1 tbsp. butter, diced
1 lemon, halved
pinch of salt
1/4 c. bacon ends, diced
8-10 fresh sage leaves, torn into smaller pieces
1/4 c. dry white wine or vermouth or broth
1/2 lb. long pasta (I used black pepper lasagnetta from Sunrise Creative Gourmet out of St. Paul—it is SO delicious and local! See St. Paul Farmers Market post for more details)
pepper (lemon pepper if you have it), to taste
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Rinse shrimp under cold water to remove any icy bits if frozen. Pat dry and then spread out on a baking sheet. Dab pesto onto the shrimp and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over it all. Mix around on the baking sheet, making sure all the shrimp is equally covered in pesto. Sprinkle diced butter throughout, as well as a pinch of salt.
2. Fill a pot with water, and bring to a boil to cook pasta. Place baking sheet with shrimp in the oven and roast for about 10-15 minutes, until shrimp are curl up like Cs (not Os).
3. While the pasta and shrimp are cooking, fry bacon ends over medium-high heat in a frying pan large enough to also fit the pasta and shrimp. Add fresh sage leaves, frying them in the bacon grease. Deglaze the pan with the wine/vermouth and stir.
4. Pour shrimp, including all the pan juices, into the frying pan. Add pasta and stir. Squeeze the other half of the lemon over the pasta. Season with pepper. Molto delizioso!
