pasta | Annie's Kitchen Therapy

Life is chaos right now so I needed comfort food dish that would not be stressful to make. Orecchiette, sausage, shrimp and broccoli rabe was just that dish last night.

Start by blanching coarsely chopped broccoli rabe (add a bullion cube to the boiling water to take the bitterness away). Then sauté de-cased sausage, shrimp, a little crushed red pepper and of course a little (or a lot) of crushed garlic. Once the sausage and shrimp are cooked through add the cooked (al dente!) orecchiette and mixed it all together. Add a few ladle fulls of the pasta water to create a bit of a broth.

Voila! Super flavorful, satisfying and easy to do. You can totally switch out the proteins here (think chicken, lobster, cod…)

Pro-tip: Add a touch of cream or mascarpone to thicken up the broth and deepen the flavor.

I made a great lightly creamy seafood pasta the other day that was, according to my hubby, “the best meal ever”. Wow. Considering how easy it was, I was very happy that it was so delicious. For the seafood I used little neck clams, shrimp and a lobster tail but you can use whatever looks good a the fish monger. I bet mussels and crab would be great in this dish too.

To start I sauteed the shrimp and lobster in a little EVOO, a dash of truffle oil and butter until just about cooked. Then I added 2 cups of chicken broth and let that heat up. When broth is hot (almost boiling) I tossed in the clams and steamed until they opened up. I added 1/2 cup of frozen peas just for color too. Next, I reduced heat to low and added 1 cup of heavy cream and a ton of fresh cracked pepper and parsley. You can thicken up the sauce with a tablespoon of mascarpone if you like.

Cooked linguine (al dente of course) was then transferred into the pan with this yummy sauce, mixed around so every piece of pasta was covered, then plated with a shaving of … wait for it … fresh truffle! (On sale at Eataly this week by the way.)