9-25 Wine pasta with Scallops & shrimp

It’s a wet, quiet Sunday morning and I am alone in the house with 8 whippets. The intermittent light rain is enough to keep me from walking dogs this morning, and with nothing else on my “to do” list I find myself thinking about tonight’s dinner.

After a number of recent dinners featuring a variety of tomato sauces I’m in the mood for something white and light and the first thing that comes to mind is sea scallops in a lemon-butter sauce with wine pasta. In her fantastic cook book on northern Italian food Lynn Rossetto Kasper offers a recipe for wine pasta…Pasta al Vino. It basically replaces half of the eggs used to make the dough with dry white wine. I’ve been anxious to try this since I first saw the recipe and today is the day to do so.

The Pasta

The recipe called for 14 oz. of flour, 2 jumbo eggs, and ½ cup of flour. This would make far more pasta than we needed so I cut it down to: 2 large eggs, ¼ cup white wine, and 7 oz. of flour. I quickly recognized that the dough would be too wet and gradually, during the kneading process added more flour…about ¼ cup…until the dough reached the right consistency and dryness. Substituting the wine for some of the egg resulted in dough that even felt lighter as it was kneaded. This would be great for any of the stuffed pastas, but today it will become fettuccini.




The sauce

INGREDIENTS:

Olive oil
Garlic, scallions
Sea scallops
Shrimp
Fresh basil and parsley
Paprika
White wine
Butter
Cream
Fresh lemon juice
Red pepper flakes

PROCESS:

Brown the scallops in butter with a sprinkling of paprika and red pepper flakes, remove and set aside. Deglaze the pan with wine, adding the results to the scallops. Add olive oil to the pan and sauté the garlic and scallions. Add the shrimp along with lemon juice and butter. When the shrimp are cooked return the scallops to the pan and keep warm.

While the pasta is cooking (homemade pasta will only take about 5 minutes) add cream to the sauce and stir well. Add the pasta to the pan, mix well and enjoy.

COMMENTS:

I had to wait all day for this meal but it was worth every minute I waited. Even if you don’t make the pasta give this sauce a try.