So Many Dishes

I love shrimp, and, until about 2 years ago, I cooked them frequently. Shrimp is the only seafood that doesn’t suffer from being frozen. We had a Sprouts Market in Wellington that always had two-pound bags of high quality frozen shrimp at good prices. They weren’t little shrimp, either; they were the 16-20 per pound size. We had a bag in our freezer more often than not. Sadly, the market closed, and the nearest Sprouts isn’t really convenient. So I buy shrimp at Publix only when we’ve put a shrimp dish on the menu.

Ken and I agreed that it had been too long since we’d had shrimp scampi, and added it to the menu for last evening. I have different recipes for scampi, but we decided on lemon pepper scampi, and there’s no question that it was a good choice.

The term scampi is the plural of scampo, the Italian term for langoustine, the type of crustacean originally cooked in the style we now call scampi. Most scampi recipes cook shrimp or other shellfish in olive oil and butter, and finish the sauce with a selection of lemon juice, white wine, aromatics, and, sometimes, red pepper. There’s plenty of variation, though. One of our favorite versions is called Greek scampi, and includes bell pepper and chopped tomatoes in the sauce.

The lemon pepper scampi recipe we opted for is a very simple one. It started as a Cooking Light recipe, but I’ve fiddled with it over the years. It’s essentially shrimp in a garlicky lemon-butter sauce with a generous amount of ground black pepper. I had leftover scallions from the previous night, so I sliced and added one to the sauce, along with a little chopped parsley. Ken had peeled and deveined the shrimp for me, so chopping the garlic, scallion, and parsley was all the prep I had to do ahead of time. I had dinner on the table really quickly.

Lemon Pepper Shrimp Scampi

• 3 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 pound large (U15 or 16-20) shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 scallion, sliced, both white and green parts
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
• Cooked pasta or crusty bread, for serving

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the shrimp to the pan; sauté 2-3 minutes, flipping once, until almost done. Transfer shrimp to a plate. Melt 1 more tablespoon of butter in the pan, and sauté the remaining shrimp. Transfer to the plate.

Melt remaining tablespoon of butter in the pan. Add the garlic and scallion to the pan; cook 30 seconds. Stir in shrimp, lemon juice, pepper, and parsley. Cook 1 minute or until shrimp is done.

Serve over pasta or with crusty bread to soak up the sauce. Makes 2-3 servings.

I served the shrimp over angel hair pasta, with a green salad on the side. Traditionally, seafood and cheese do not mix in Italian cuisine, but American versions of shrimp scampi often call for sprinkling the dish with Parmesan, and we like to add it. A glass of a dry French rosé was a perfect complement. It felt like a date night meal.

Happy eating!