Gemelli with Shrimp and 3 Peas

Am I overdoing it with the pasta here? I do tend to eat a lot of pasta in the summer. Well, and in the winter,too, actually. Anyhow, I was out of ideas for the peashoots that came with my farmbox this week. There were lots of them. (Peashoots that is-not such a lot of ideas.) First, I made the Potage St. Germaine with Peashoots and Chives that I figured out last year, which also addressed the lettuce glut. I even managed to avoid the multiple equipment failures and personal klutziness issues that were such fun the first time.

Nice, but there's a limit to the amount of it a person wants to consume. It is more the small bowl than the giant bucket kind of thing. I remembered seeing a recipe for a stir fry with 3 peas, and decided to adapt the idea for a pasta, with a few shrimp I had on hand. I wouldn't call this a sauce, since it is not at all liquidy. This non-liquid business was more or less intentional, with the idea of a pasta salad for lunch tomorrow in mind. The "three peas" are snow peas, regular peas, and peashoots. I thought it was pretty good with the shrimp, but if I left the shrimp out, I would have used parmesan shavings, instead of the breadcrumbs.

This is what I used:

4 oz bacon, cut in thin strips, cross-wise
a shallot, minced
2 cups peas shoots, chopped up coarsely
1 cup snow peas, whole
1/2 cup defrosted frozen little peas
pinch aleppo pepper
10 raw shrimp, shelled
1/2 cup veal broth
1/4 cup fresh mint, sliced very thin
6 oz gemelli or other pasta
toasted breadcrumbs

This is what I did:

I started the pasta water and the sauce at the same time. As soon as the pasta water boiled, I added and cooked the pasta. The sauce was ready first. When the pasta was cooked, I mixed them together in the sauce pot. For a saucier effect, you could add a bit of the pasta water.

To make the sauce, I cooked the bacon in a heavy pan until it was crispy, then removed it to drain on paper towels. I added the shrimp, and the aleppo pepper, and cooked them until just done. I removed those too, sauteed the shallots, peas shoots and snow peas. Then I put everything back in the pot with the broth, cooked it all down a little, and plopped in the prepared pasta. I mixed the mint in last. It was nice warm with toasted breadcrumbs on top. Not so bad with a little vinagrette and some oily olives, room temp, for a lunch next day.

Comments

[lobstersquad]

There´s no such thing as too much pasta, rain or shine. I´ll wait a little before I make the cauliflower one from last post, though. The temperature has to drop at least 5 degrees for that.

[steven]

Another winner and gemelli is one of my favorite pasta shapes, I like the thickness and the way it holds sauce.

[anapestic]

This makes no sense to me whatsoever! I can see at least twenty peas in that picture. And gemelli with three ps is gepmelplip, which is more than a mouthful.

Looks tasty, though.

[Tanna]

Looks excellent to me. Pasta is just good good.

[Luisa]

Lucky you - we never got pea shoots in our CSA. Delectable things. I always order them in Chinese restaurants.

[lindy]

l'squad: I am a very bad woman and have been known to run the air conditioner against the stove.
steven: I like it, too-first time I've tried it. chewy.
'pestic: It's done with mirrors, eh? Pemippi, actually.
tanna: I would not disagree a bit, as you may have noticed.
Luisa: Do you have a recipe in that collection of yours for a chinese peashoots dish? I'd love to see one.

[Ivonne]

Lindy,

What gorgeous pasta! Gemelli are one of my favourite types and I just love how they look with the green ... delicious!

[Rebecca]

This looks like the perfect refreshing summer pasta dinner; but I have to confess, I don't even know what a pea shoot is and would have thought it was some kind of schoolboy weapon until now. I love the mint in it and wish I could have eaten some of this instead of the pint of Haagen-Dasz that I did just finish for my dinner (even though this black raspberry chip flavor they have is darn good!)

[jenjen]

I love the shape of the pasta you used, I don't thinkI have ever seen it before. It's beautiful.

[Julie]

Wait, it's possible to overdue it with the pasta? I had no idea.