Scampi means a lot of things all over the world. Here in the States, it generally means
shrimp with garlic and butter. I'm going to show you a very simple version of it served
with rice that my dad taught me. Then I'm going to show you a slightly more elaborate
version of it that I do with pasta. Both versions use my dad's secret ingredient.
I almost always buy my shrimp frozen. It's cheaper, the quality is more reliable and
they thaw very fast. I'm just submerging them in plenty of lukewarm water from the tap.
If you're in a hurry, you could change this water once or twice, or leave the faucet trickling,
but shrimp are so small that these will thaw in like 20 minutes with no further attention
from me, during which time I'll get my rice started. This how I usually do white rice;
this is not how my dad taught me. Basically I start it like risotto. A little butter in
a hot pan, then in goes a cup of jasmine rice, which has a really nice flavor, and then I
just move it around and toast it in the pan for minute. I have not rinsed this rice. Maybe
I'm the minority, but most of the time I actually want my rice to be clumpy, not fluffy.
OK, in goes one and a half cups of water to one cup rice. I tend to like the firmer, dryer
texture that you get by being conservative with the water. I'll mix in a big pinch of
salt and immediately turn the heat down to a low simmer and cover it. That's ample rice
for two people. I'm making two portions of the rice scampi and two of the pasta scampi.
Now, vegetable prep. I'm peeling and chopping half a head of garlic. That's a lot of garlic
for two portions, but that's what scampi means to me. You could use less. Now here's dad's
secret ingredient: celery leaves. They are so good. Whenever I buy celery I look for
the stalks that have the most leaves still on them. It's basically just a fresh herb
that tastes strongly of celery without having the celery texture that some people, such
as my wife, find objectionable.
Just roughly chopping a nice big bunch, so that I have kinda equal piles of garlic and
celery leaves.
Shrimp is thawed. Here's a plate covered in paper towels to hold my peeled shrimp. They
cook better if when they're dry. And you can see here that these are "de-veined," but unpeeled
shrimp. That usually my preferred way to get them. The processor has cut off the heads
and then cut down the back of the shrimp, thus making them much easier to peel. The
big question is whether you want to bother trying to get the shell off of the tail.
A lot of people are happy to leave them on and then just eat around them on the plate.
I prefer to try to get it off. You kinda have to pinch the tail shell at the very and gingerly
slide it off without accidentally tearing off the meat inside it. 10 percent of the
time, I fail. But I would rather sacrifice a little bit of meat than have to worry about
shells when I'm eating.
Ah, there, you can see the "vein" that we're talking about — it's of course not a a vein
at all, but the shrimp's intestinal tract containing remnants of its last meal. Even
the if the bag says deveined, there's usually some shrimp in there that still have it. It's
gross to think about, but it's not really a problem. People eat the vein all the time.
It's not really perceivable and it's not dangerous. It's mostly silt.
Now when you're done, you can just pour out the water, and then do yourself a favor and
throw those shells directly into your compost or outdoor trash. Shrimp shells can stink
up a kitchen real fast.
So that's a pound of shrimp, enough for at least four people. I might dab them with another
paper towel just to get them as dry as possible.
You can see my rice here has been done for a while. It only takes like 15 minutes, but
I always get it going early as possible because I prefer rice after its just kinda rested
on warm for a long time.
Alright, pan for the shrimp goes on medium heat, and I'll melt in just a little bit of
butter to start with. We're gonna put in more butter later. This is just enough for getting
the shrimp cooked through. When the butter is good and hot, I'll dump in half a pound
of shrimp, enough for two big portions, and I'm making sure that they're all in one layer
and lying flat. My dad lays them in one by one, which is probably smarter.
Shrimp cooks incredibly fast — 2 to 5 minutes total, depending on their size. I reckon these
will take four minutes. When the first side is visibly cooked, when it's changed color,
I will flip them around. Dad flips them one at a time with tongs. My approach is admittedly
more chaotic. I'm not seasoning these, by the way, because I'm using salted butter,
and shrimp are naturally salty anyway.
When the shrimp have just gone opaque all the way through, I will remove them to a plate.
If you had a wider pan than I do, you could maybe just push them all to the sides, but
this will make it all but impossible to overcook them.
Then, in goes more butter — I'd say at least a tablespoon per portion. The butter is the
sauce for this. Get it melting and then throw in the garlic. Move it all around and get
it cooking for a sec, just to soften the pieces and to take the edge off the flavor, then
in goes the celery leaves and the shrimp. You could put in some pepper, but if you're
using salted butter like I am, you probably don't want any additional salt. Get everything
coated and then take the pan off the heat.
Cover the plate with rice. I love my rice a little clumpy like that. Maybe make a little
well in the center to hold the shrimp, and then shovel in the shrimp, being sure to get
any of the loose garlic butter that might still be in the pan. There you go — one
of the first things my dad taught me how to cook. The flavor of those celery leaves goes
so well with shrimp, and they look pretty. You can squeeze on some lemon over that if
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OK, here's where I've taken my dad's scampi recipe. I start with the same half head of
garlic and an equivalent pile of chopped celery leaves for two big portions. I've got some
water on the boil for pasta and I've got my super-deep Chrissy Teigen pan for the shrimp.
You need something big enough to toss the pasta and the shrimp together in. Medium-high
heat on the pan, and then olive oil, not butter. I don't want to just cook the shrimp; I want
to brown the shrimp, and butter might burn at this higher temperature. When it's hot,
in goes half a pound of shrimp, again, making sure they're all more or less flat and in
one layer.
I find the timing works perfectly if I get the shrimp in, and then put in my linguine,
which will take about 12 minutes in salted boiling water. Yes I break my pasta in half.
My dad breaks it. His Italian mother broke it. It just makes long pastas easier to eat,
but you do you.
Now, shrimp, like any meat, tastes amazing when it gets browned, but people rarely cook
it that far because they're afraid of overcooking the shrimp and turning them into rubber. My
solution to this problem is cook the shrimp really hot and like 80 percent of the way
on one side. I'm only browning side A. You can really smell the browning by the time
they're ready to flip, and when I flip after about three minutes, I use a wooden spoon
to scrape them up off the pan. They'll be stuck.
Then I'll just move them around and let the rest of each shrimp finish cooking through
via steam or direct heat for like another minute, then remove them to the plate. Might
want to turn that heat down, then real quick, before the fond burns, in goes the garlic.
Just fry that for a minute, then deglaze with white wine. I'd guess that's maybe half a
cup. I'm also gonna squeeze in a little lemon — just a few drops, or more if you really
like lemon. Then I'm gonna reduce this almost dry, or "au sec" as the French say, because
my goal here is to make a crude beurre blanc sauce. That's an emulsion of melted butter
and reduced white wine and/or vinegar or lemon juice. If you wanted to avoid the white wine,
my advice is always water spiked with white balsamic vinegar. You have to cool the pan
down before you put in the butter, otherwise it will break. The bubbling should be almost
over. My heat's off, and that's ready.
People usually mix in a few little chunks of butter at a time, because if you introduce
the butter too fast, again, the emulsion will break — the fat will just separate out.
But I find that if you put in one giant chunk of cold butter, it's gonna melt really slowly,
because of the low surface area. I'm doing four tablespoons of butter — that's two
per portion. Just mixing constantly and letting it melt in the residual heat of the pan.
We're gonna toss our pasta in there, and I have found that the heat of the pasta can
be enough to break this sauce, so what I do these days is put in a tiny little pinch of
my new best friend in the kitchen — xanthan gum. You can get this in the baking isle of
grocery stores now. It's an amazing stabilizer and thickener. If you try to dissolve it into
water, in clumps up horribly, but it dissolves smoothly into fat. This is melted butter.
You can see the powder dissolves right into that, even though butter is like 15 percent
water.
So for a mostly fat sauce like beurre blanc, you can just drop in a pinch, and that is
gonna make this sauce just bullet proof. It will not break. I like some chili flakes in
there for heat, and also some black pepper. Really, no additional salt, again because
I'm using salted butter.
Pasta is now done, and I am pouring off some of the water but not all. I'd say a quarter
cup of that water is an essential ingredient in my sauce. In goes the pasta with that little
bit of water, and I'll start stirring it in. I find that if the sauce looks a little bit
too loose and soupy at this stage, then it's gonna be perfect by the time I actually eat
it. In go those delicious celery leaves and the shrimp. I just wanna heat both back up
again and get them integrated, I don't want to cook them any more.
Eh, I think I want some more chili flakes. And there you go. Tongs are usually best for
getting this kind of thing out onto a plate, because you can use them to grab and straggler
shrimp. Some people have rules against mixing shellfish with cheese — not just religious
rules, but I mean culinary rules, which to many Italians are basically like religion.
I dunno, a little grated pecorino tastes real good on this to me. But you do you. That sauce
is so delicious, and the xanthan gum takes all the stress out of it. It also improves
the texture, I think. Real smooth. Dad's celery leaf trick is of course genius, and look at
the color on that shrimp. When I first figured out that I could brown shrimp without overcooking
it, that was a game-changer for me.
So, dad's version or my version, take your pick and dig in.