The Wrong Recipe

I’m home alone for a few days and it becomes my pleasure to be able to cook for myself. I will admit there are some challenges I face when this happens, different from my Tuesday night opportunities. I have not the ability to cook for one!

When I first was without my family and lived alone, in 1985, it was already a problem trying to buy the correct amount of food and cook the correct amount. I just don’t get it!

So, I was faced on Saturday with making my Saturday evening meal, and doing it well. I knew my local supermarket had medium sized shrimp on sale for $5 a pound! I knew I was going to do something with that and went on line for shrimp and pasta recipes, which is always a winner, and I wanted to make something new. I found the following one with a great title and went for it.

Buca Di Beppo Shrimp Arrabbiata

3 ounces olive oil

1 pound fresh shrimp

2 1/2 ounces garlic, peeled

4 ounces whole shallots, peeled

5 ounces white wine

2 1/2 ounces lemon juice

8 ounces tomatoes, chopped

3 ounces Calamata olives

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon red pepper

1 1/2 ounce butter

2 1/2 tablespoons sage

1 1/2 ounce ricotta salata cheese

10 ounces butter

1 1/2 ounce garlic

2 ounces Romano cheese

1 tablespoon red pepper

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 pounds angel hair pasta

Directions:

Coarsely chop the shallots. Pull butter to soften. Cook the angel hair al dente and lightly oil. Finely chop fresh sage. Halve the pitted black olives and portion to 3 ounces, cut ricotta salata in 1/4 inch cubes and portion to 1 1/2 ounces.

Heat olive oil in sauté pan and add shrimp. Saute for approximately 30 seconds. Add the garlic and shallots for 30 seconds. Add white wine, lemon juice, fresh chopped tomatoes, black olives salt and crushed red pepper. Cook until the shrimp are just cooked through. Remove pan from heat an add 1 1/2 oz. room temperature butter. In a large sauté pan place 10 oz. butter, 1 Tbsp. crushed red pepper, salt, finely chopped sage and 1 1/2 oz chopped garlic. Place heated pasta in sauté pan and toss well to incorporate all ingredients thoroughly. Toss with romano cheese and place on a large platter. Top with shrimp and sauce, garnish with cubed ricotta salata and serve to delighted guests.

This recipe serves 6

I quickly went through the ingredient list and wrote down that which I did not have and went shopping. The only thing I couldn’t easily get were shallots, as the store was out so I used sweet onion instead.

I never looked at the amounts and bought pretty much what I normally do and when it came dinner time, I got started cooking.

I was alone. I know a pound of shrimp was too much for me but I thought I’d use the leftovers. As well, a pond of angel hair was too much and I intended to make less. All in all, I started with a good attitude, never really reading the damn recipe.

The two outstanding ingredients that gave me pause were the butter and the pasta. I had seen the 1 ½ ounces of butter listed without reading further down and finding another listing for an additional 10 ounces of butter! This is enough to kill a cow! This is a weird recipe because it lists butter twice rather than listing the entire thing at once. As well, I know now it’s for 6 people but still, 2 ½ pounds of angel hair pasta would be enough for a village!

I made a huge bowl of this stuff trying to follow a sort of new version of the recipe and it worked with one pound of pasta and about two tablespoons of butter. It’s pretty good and will provide about 4 meals for me. I will add to it with more veggies and less pasta now that’s it’s down a bit (two more meals) but it wasn’t all that great.

I could have easily made up my own version (which I sort of did anyway). I looked online for the recipe and found all versions are the same recipe copied. Most often people copy recipes and never test them, a fatal mistake!

Often I run into a printed recipe in a book that clearly no one has ever made because it doesn’t work! All of mine that were published by me or by others, have been kitchen tested!

There’s too much of this stuff to throw away, so I will make it better. But, one pound of shrimp, 2 ½ pounds of pasta and 11 ounces of butter is not a healthy diet for anyone.