Pink Shrimp Pasta

Pink shrimp is a recipe I think I ate for the first time at Auntie Layla's house. It was soo good, spicy and sour and yummy except at the time there was no pasta with it. Ths is my version of the shrimp dish it can be served with or without pasta, sometimes i serve it with couscous too.This is such a good fast easy recipe that i use to bribe Sharif, my brother (one of my favorites), to sleep over with when Oussama was on call when i first got married.

The shrimp i use is deveined shelled frozen shrimp from costco, the medium size. I don't like to eat shrimp outside of my house and my mom's house because my mom showed me the SECOND nasty vein on the belly side of a shrimp. It is so easy to just remove it, make a small slit down the belly and the vein practically comes out itself.

In a saucepan add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and add the thawed shrimp, when they are in the pan just lightly salt and pepper them to taste. This si the only time in the recipe that I add salt.

cook the shrimp on both sides, just to get them pink but don't cook them all the way because they will cook in the sauce and overcooked shrimp becomes rubbery. In this picture i am showing how the middle of the shrimp is still opaque and raw.

Add a small pat of butter to the pan and add a whole garlic bunch which is thinly sliced. Make sure to stir the garlic because garlic burns easily and then becomes bitter.

Add about 1/2 to 3/4 cups of chicken broth to the pan and get all the little bits of shrimp that were stuck to the pan, lots of flavor, this is the muslim way to deglaze without using alcohol.

Add the juice of 2 lemons

Add in paprika (not the hot one) and cayenne pepper. I did not add alot of cayenne because I have Laith who likes spicy but cant handle as much as an adult can.

When the sauce has cooked down a little return the shrimp to the pan and finish cooking the shrimp until it is done.

Once the shrimp is done cooking remove the pan from the fire and add in butter and slowly swirl it around. This will make the sauce creamy and it will become a pink color, adding the butter at the end will also thicken up the sauce.

Add in your al dente pasta (because you want it to be able to absorb the sauce). I used penne here but i usually use linguinne.

Sprinkle with some parley as a garnish and your done. How simple is that!

Written Recipe:

20 medium sized shrimp

2 1/2 tablespoons of butter

1 cup of chicken broth

1 head of garlic thinly sliced

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 pound of pasta

1/2 tablespoon of paprika (not hot)

1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Juice of 2 lemons

parley as garnish

salt and pepper to taste.