Macaroni with Shrimp
Macaroni with shrimp can be made in 20-30 minutes, and it is both filling and delicious. A regular portion at breakfast is enough to keep you full until lunch. The beauty of pasta dishes is that they are extremely simple to make. The sauce and add-ins are ready by the time the pasta is cooked, and the ingredients need no lengthy preparation.
The combination of tender shrimp and the light acidity of pan-fried cherry tomatoes is a remarkable one: a flavor people love and never tire of. Fresh basil adds color to the dish and a delicate aroma. For the sauce, a little milk or cream is added to the fried tomatoes.
If you like, the type of pasta is not that important. Any short pasta will do: penne, fusilli, farfalle. I prefer real macaroni, ideally homemade: short, thin tubes about the size of a medium shrimp tail. When made by hand they usually turn out curved and look a bit like a shrimp.
In our part of the world, by long tradition, “macaroni” means any dried pasta, from spaghetti to vermicelli, from shells to bows. Strictly speaking, though, macaroni is a specific type of pasta: short, curved tubes of dried dough, sold as maccheroni. They are a few millimeters in diameter, with a hole in the middle, and 5-6 cm long. It is the ideal pasta for navy-style macaroni, although I prefer thicker tubes.
It turns out that making pasta is very simple. Durum wheat flour, Italian semola di grano duro, is sold almost everywhere. With a few small kitchen tools you can make up to ten different kinds of pasta. Even just cutting thinly rolled dough into strips with a knife gives you homemade noodles.
A manual pasta machine easily handles small batches of several kinds of pasta. Durum wheat flour is mixed with regular flour, eggs are added and, not always, a little water. The stiff dough is kneaded and pressed through the holes of the extruder. The raw pasta is dried slightly, which keeps it from sticking together while boiling. The whole process takes 10-12 minutes. Fresh pasta, or pasta fresca, cooks faster than dried store-bought pasta.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Macaroni (dried) 200 g
- Water for cooking the pasta 2–2.5 l
- Salt for the pasta water 7 g per 1 l of water
- Shrimp 150 g
- Cherry tomatoes 10-12
- Fresh basil 2-3 sprigs
- Milk or cream 50 ml
- Garlic 2-3 cloves
- Olive oil 3 tbsp
- Salt, black pepper to taste
Step-by-step recipe
The easiest way to make macaroni with shrimp is to use ready-made store-bought pasta. Besides macaroni, penne or fusilli work well, and they are sold everywhere. If you decide to make homemade pasta, mix 1 cup of durum wheat flour (130 g) (it is coarsely ground and looks like semolina) with 1 tbsp of regular flour (10 g) in a bowl. Add one egg and knead the dough. I advise adding boiled water, but no more than 1 tsp at a time. The dough should be stiff and take some effort to knead by hand.
Using a kitchen pasta tool, usually an extruder with a perforated plate that shapes a particular type of pasta as the dough passes through it, form the macaroni, cutting it with a knife or wire when it reaches about 6 cm. Spread the pasta on a towel or board to dry a little. If you use ready-made pasta, you can go straight to boiling it and making the sauce.
Heat 2-2.5 l of water in a pot and add 1 tsp of salt (6 g). Add dried or fresh pasta to the boiling water. The cooking time for store-bought macaroni is on the package, as the manufacturer guarantees al dente. Fresh, just-made pasta usually cooks in 5-6 minutes. Watch it so it does not overcook. Macaroni with shrimp is at its best when the pasta still has the slightest firmness.
Use cooked shrimp, with their red-coral color, of medium size, 40-50 count. If they are frozen, pour boiling water over them for 5 minutes, then rinse and peel. The dish needs only the tails, the so-called shrimp meat. The cherry tomatoes should not be overripe; slightly underripe ones are even better. Use as much fresh basil as you like.
Peel a few garlic cloves and crush them with a knife. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Fry the garlic until lightly golden and discard it right away. Its job is to flavor the olive oil. Wash the cherry tomatoes and dry them well. Cut the tomatoes in half and fry them in the hot oil for 1-2 minutes.
Salt the tomatoes, even a little more than usual. Add the peeled shrimp and fry for another minute. Add a quarter cup of cream or milk. Stir the sauce, reduce the heat and simmer for 4-5 minutes. The milk makes the sauce tender, with a soft, pleasant taste. The sauce will not be thick, and that is fine. The macaroni will absorb all the liquid, which spreads through the tubes, so there will be no liquid left in the finished dish.
Drain the cooked macaroni in a colander and let all the water run off. Add the pasta to the sauce and stir. Season with black pepper to taste. Pick the leaves off the basil sprigs and add them to the pasta and sauce. Toss everything together and divide among plates. If a little sauce is left, pour it over the pasta on the plates.
Serve the pasta right away, while it is hot. Besides the ingredients suggested here, you can add pieces of zucchini, small hot peppers or lemon zest. Many people like macaroni with grated Parmesan or Pecorino. Be sure to garnish the dish with a sprig of basil, so it pleases the eye.
Calories and macros
650 kcal
Serving ≈ 410 g
- Protein30 g19% of kcal
- Fat24 g34% of kcal
- Carbs75 g48% of kcal
100 g158 kcalProtein 7.3 gFat 5.8 gCarbs 18.3 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
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