On Monday night I was planning on making a seafood pesto risotto, but came to my senses on the drive home. Risotto? On a work night?? I ended up making this pasta dish instead.
Pesto Linguine with Seared Scallops and Prawns
Serves moi
I sliced a few cloves of garlic along with half of a small onion, and sauteed this in olive oil until it had a jam-like texture. With the heat on medium, I threw in several jumbo prawns, and cooked them for a minute or so before adding in several giant Nova Scotia scallops. I let these get some nice colour, and didn't worry too much about them being overdone -- luckily both types of seafood were on the large side. (I hate an overdone scallop.) Since the pasta wasn't quite ready, I turned off the heat before they were done and threw in a few chopped kalamata olives. These were the good Greek ones -- the Italian imposters had already passed over to the great beyond (i.e. my garbage bin).
While all this was going on, I had some whole wheat De Cecco linguine simmering away on the stove. Once it was done, I combined it with some fresh pesto that I'd prepared on the weekend. What a score that was -- I arrived at the Crossroads market late on Sunday, and they had marked down some of the produce. A huge bag of fresh basil for $2? Yes please!
Meanwhile I toasted some pine nuts (leftover from the pesto) until they had quite a bit of colour. Not burnt, just really well toasted. Okay, a few might have been a tad burnt -- but it really added to the overall flavour and presentation, I promise!
(I'm making this sound very organized -- and for a work night, it was probably about as organized as I was going to get. But my timing was off on a few of these steps, and the dish would probably have been better if I had prepped better and didn't have to pause so often. Next time, right?)
To serve, I put some of the pesto-coated linguine in a bowl, topped that with the seafood mixture, and sprinkled a few pine nuts on the top (with freshly ground pepper). It was very delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I ended up making the same dish on Tuesday night (although my timing was a bit improved :-).
This is a simple dish that obviously doesn't require a recipe, but I did like the addition of the olives. I don't know whether it's a standard combination (maybe in Mediterranean or Provincial cooking?), but it reminded me of a pasta dish that I used to order from a Houston restaurant. Which (now that I think of it) had pasta, olives,... and I can't think of any other ingredient. Maybe I was just a bit too eager to try something with my lovely Greek olives?
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
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