Static Zap Green Cream Shrimp Spaghetti

You know who's really cool besides you and me?  Steven Raichlen.  Man!  He can do it all.  He writes, cooks, teaches, has a show...  Mad skills I tell you.  I love his recipes.  That Green Lightning Shrimp?  Terrific.  It's pretty easy, too.  But, you have to set up the grill.

Grilling is really not my thing.  Much to the dismay of my feminist leanings, it's my husband who is in charge of setting up and operating our dearly beloved Weber.  He carves the turkey, too.  Sometimes I feel like such a cliche.

So, anyway, I found myself really wanting those green shrimp guys and finding myself without the how-to skills to grill them.  I figured, why not complicate things, bastardize Raichlen's recipe, and turn it into a pasta dish?  Sure!  Why not?  I've made worse decisions.  It was pretty good.

Green Cream Herbed Pasta with Shrimp

4 large jalapeños with seeds
handful each of mint leaves, chives, cilantro with stems, parsley
2 giant cloves of garlic or 4 normal size
1/3 C olive oil
1 lime juiced
1 1/2 ts of salt
1/2 ts of pepper

 puree the above in a food processor until smooth.

1 pound of large shrimp (16-20 in a pound)

3/4 box of cooked spaghetti

1/2 C of cream

butter for pan

1 chopped tomato with seeds and pulp taken out.

Divide pureed mixture into 2.  Use one half to marinate the peeled and deveined shrimp for 1/2 an hour in a bowl in the fridge. Set the other 1/2 aside.

***FYI, I defrosted the shrimp by putting them in a colander and the colander in a large bowl.  Then put them under the kitchen faucet with a slow stream of cold water washing down until their little bodies are just flexible.  I checked them at 5 minutes but they weren't defrosted until 10.  FYI, don't over defrost them or they'll get that horrible ammonia smell that is the tell-tale sign of fish thawing gone awry.***

While the shrimp are marinating, get everything else ready.  Get the water boiling for the pasta.  You'll be making a sauce with the reserved un(shrimp)contaminated puree.  You'll need a heavy skillet to pan fry the shrimp and another one for the sauce.  So, get ready.

Go ahead and cook the pasta.  Add reserved puree to skillet #1, add cream, and 1/2 (1/4 C) ladle of pasta water.  Bring to a boil and let it thicken just a little.  If it gets too thick add more pasta water to thin it out a bit.  Turn off the heat so you don't cook it to nothing while preparing the shrimp.  Have cooked pasta set aside and ready to add to sauce.  Have heavy skillet #2 heating over medium high heat for 5 minutes before cooking shrimp.

When shrimp are finished marinating, smear some butter over the hot skillet and put the shrimp in cooking 2-3 minutes aside (3 minutes on the first side and 2 on the second). They'll curl, turn pink, and firm up when the are ready.  To make sure I was killing any germ warfare that maybe still alive, I also flipped them onto their fat backs for a few seconds to destroy any lurking pathogens.  Transfer the little guys to a plate.

Add pasta to skillet with sauce and turn heat back on while you mix pasta and sauce thereby reheating & combining the two.  Plate the pasta, arrange shrimp on top, and garnish with chopped tomato.

Maybe I should learn to grill.