A nice ditali pasta entree!
Sometimes, I give in and make a cream sauce for a pasta. I prefer not to do cream sauces too often, because cream sauces pasta are so overused. Many chefs simply offer a cream sauce or a tomato sauce with pasta and nothing else. One reason why cream is overused for pasta sauces, is cream reductions are so easy to make. Another reason, is that cream carries flavor and it matches well with many flavors. If you check traditional Italian cooking out, then you will see that olive oil with finely chopped featured ingredients is often used as a sauce. Stew sauces and broths also accompany Italian pasta. In northern Italy, butter is often used to coat pasta with flavor. As you can see, there are other options to using cream sauces for pasta. In Italy, cream is rarely used as a pasta sauce! France and America tend to use cream for pasta sauces more than any other country. Since cream sauces for pasta do not have to adhere to old traditional pasta sauce rules, there is plenty of room for creativity. Simplicity is nearly a standard rule for cream pasta sauces. It seems like it is better to feature a few select ingredients that go well together when creating a cream pasta sauce, than to load the sauce up with everything but the kitchen sink! Cream has a way of carrying a featured flavor. Cream can also become muddied with too many flavors. Simplicity seems to be a good thing to keep in mind when creating a cream sauce for pasta. Garlic cream is an old standard sauce that is well liked. It was a natural choice to use Chinese garlic chives in place of garlic. Chinese garlic chives are not chives! Chinese garlic chives are garlic green tops. There is a also a Chinese garlic chive that comes from the Chinese leek plank. Chinese leeks are not the common leek that can be found in French kitchens. They are small bulbs. The Chinese garlic chive variety that I used for this sauce came from a garlic plant. Chinese garlic chives have a gentle mellow garlic flavor that is nice for flavoring a cream pasta sauce. Portabella mushrooms are nice with Chinese garlic chives and they add rich flavor to the cream sauce. The shrimp add a little bit of flavor to the sauce too. Instead of simply adding tomato to the cream sauce, the tomato was prepared as a concasse, so a fresh bright flavor would accompany the cream sauce.
Ditali and Shrimp with Chinese Garlic Chive Portabella Creme and Tomato Concasse: Cook 1 portion of ditali pasta in boiling water, tills the pasta becomes al dente. The sauce can be made while the pasta cooks! Heat a saute pan over medium/medium low heat. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add 3 or 4 small portabella mushrooms that are cut into small wedges. Dredge 12 medium size peeled and deveined shrimp in flour. (Remove the shrimp tails.) Add the floured shrimp to the pan. Saute till the mushrooms start to become tender and till the shrimp are a little bit more than halfway fully cooked. Add 2 ounces of dry white wine. Allow the wine to reduce, till it is nearly evaporated. Add 1 cup of cream. Add 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice. Add 2 to 3 pinches of cracked black pepper. Add sea salt. Simmer and reduce the cream sauce, till it becomes a thin sauce consistency. Reduce the temperature to very low heat. Add 2 tablespoons of garlic chives that are cut into 1/2" lengths. Simmer and reduce, till the sauce becomes a medium thin cosistency. By now the ditali pasta should be ready. Drain the water off of the pasta. Add the pasta to the sauce. Toss the ingredients together. Place the pasta in a shallow pasta bowl. Sprinkle 1 plum tomato that is prepared as concasse over the pasta. (Concasse means to peel, seed and filet the tomato, then the tomato is diced. Garnish with a sprig of Italian parsley. Garnish with Chinese garlic chive flowers.
The flavor of this pasta entree is gentle and nice! Yum! ... Shawna
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