Fettuccine Alfredo with Garlic Butter Shrimp
Best easy weeknight pasta recipe that only takes a few minutes to make
Suggested Equipment
Ingredients
The Shrimp
- 1 pound Rock Shrimp (Use what you can find)
- ½ stick Butter
- 1 tablespoon Garlic
Alfredo Sauce
- 4 oz Cream Cheese / half of a package
- ⅔ cup Pimento Cheese or Cheddar Cheese / or use what you like
- ½ cup Half & Half Milk
- ¼ cup Spam or Bacon / 2 pieces of bacon
- 1 tablespoon Minced Jalapeno Pepper
- 2 teaspoon Fresh Ginger
- 2 tablespoon Fresh Parsley
- 2 tablespoon Pecorino Romano
Pasta
- 1 bag Dry Fettuccine / use as much or as little as you like
- Fresh Pasta (look below for How-To-Recipe
Instructions
Cooking the Shrimp
- STEP 1In a medium pot, using medium heat, add-in ½ stick of butter and 1 tablespoon of minced garlic and salt and pepper, add to taste. Once the garlic is cooked, ( once the garlic is cooked, the garlic should give off a nutty sweet aroma) then add-in the shrimp and stir combining all ingredients. After cooking the shrimp for 2 to 3 minutes (par-cooked) take them off the heat and set aside. We will heat them back up to perfection when we plate the pasta. SHRIMP COOKING TIP: Par cooking the shrimp first allows the shrimp to slowly continue cooking, only needing a quick reheat before plating. Secondly, this tip will help you with your kitchen timing.
Making the Alfredo Sauce
- STEP 1Begin by dicing the Spam or bacon into small pieces and getting that into a large skillet on medium-high heat. You'll want to use a skillet large enough for all the Alfredo sauce and pasta.Chop up half of one jalapeno or Serrano and cook with the Spam. Temperature closer to medium than high heat. I use the bottom portion of the pepper to lower the amount of spicy/heat.
- STEP 2Once the Spam/bacon is cooked, add-in the cream cheese and "half and half" (cream cheese: use half a package 4 oz) and melt 80% of the way,( use more cream cheese if you wish ), once close to fully melted, then add-in the second cheese, either pimento cheese (recipe below) or cheddar cheese, Pecorino Romano or Parmesan Romano. The reason you add the pimento cheese after the cream cheese has melted is the cream cheese takes a longer amount of time to melt. Add salt and pepper to taste, at least 1 teaspoon of salt. Use the "half and half" to control the thickness of the sauce. Have it ready to add more if needed.Half & Half is a milk product that includes both whole milk and heavy cream 50% to 50% parts.Recipe LINK for Pimento Cheese follows below
- STEP 3Grate in some fresh ginger (optional) Ginger goes well with shrimp/seafood.Add chopped fresh parsley and grate some lemon zest into the sauce. Lemon zest, about 1 teaspoon or less. You could add some of the Pecorino Romano now if you like. Usually for finishing on top of the dish. Turn the heat off on the sauce before cooking the pasta and finishing the cook on the shrimp. You can add more half & half if the sauce tightens up too much.
Cooking the Pasta and Finishing Tips
- Bring a pot of water to the boil. Add in enough salt to season the water as salty as the sea/ocean. 6% salinity
- Fresh Pasta takes about 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Dry Pasta cook accordingly to the box/package
- Once the pasta is cooked to your liking you need to marry the pasta with the sauce.In Italy, this is a culinary rule. The pasta is ready to take on whichever flavor you want to add. The pasta is effective to flavor straight out of the cooking water. The starchy water helps the sauce in texture.
Finishing Cooking The Shrimp & Plating
- We are now using three stove burners. One is now off with the Alfredo sauce on it (make sure the sauce is to temperature before plating. The second burner has boiling water on it seasoned with salt ready to cook the pasta. And the third is turned on and hot ( the shrimp finishes cooking in that same pot for about1 minute and gets plated last.
- Make sure you're cooking the pasta on a burner right next to the Alfredo sauce. (lowers the mess) Drop the pasta into boiling water. If you're cooking dry pasta, the box instructions says to cook for (whatever amount of time) when the timer reaches 1 minute left put the shrimp back on the hot burner and begin to finish cooking them. Should take 1 to 2 minutes. Add chopped parsley after one-minute of cooking...Next, the pasta timer goes off, test a piece for doneness. Then move the pasta from the boiling water to the large skillet with the Alfredo sauce and coat all the pasta in the sauce. "Marry the pasta with the sauce"Using kitchen tongs swirl the pasta in a circle and plate in the middle of the place. Grate fresh Pecorino Romano or Parmesan Romano over the pasta.Add the shrimp on top of the pasta and add even more Pecorino Romano or Parmesan Romano and finish with chopped parsley.