MineralMan's No-Stress Seafood Pasta Dinner

[MineralMan]

Last edited Mon Mar 5, 2018, 04:38 PM - Edit history (3)

Made this for five people this weekend. It was very well-received.

Menu
Bruschetta Appetizers
Green Salad with Gorgonzola
Mafalda Primavera di Mare

Wine Parings
LaMarca Proseco Spumante
Kendall Jackson Vintners Reserve Chardonnay

Ingredients List - Serves 4 or 5
1 lb. frozen cooked peeled shrimp, tails off.
1 lb. frozen sea scallops (the large ones)
Bag of small, multi-colored sweet peppers
8 large Roma tomatoes
A dozen or so small salad tomatoes
1 large cucumber
2 bunches asparagus
Two packages of shitake mushrooms (pre-sliced may be available)
1 large bag of fresh salad greens
2 bunches green onions
Minced garlic
Granulated garlic
Bottle of dried Italian herb mix
Bleu Cheese Salad Dressing - premium brand
1 tub of crumbled gorgonzola cheese
1 tub of shredded 3-cheese mix (parmesan, romano, asiago)
1 baguette loaf (about 3" around)
1 lb, package of dry Mafalda or Radiatorre pasta
1 small jar of sliced green olives
1 pint heavy cream
Balsamic Vinegar - You don't need a really expensive brand or very much of it
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Cooking Stuff You'll Need
Large electric skillet (recommended) or very large frying pan (14" )
Medium stovetop skillet
Large pot for cooking dry pasta (self-draining insert is very handy)
Sharp chef's knife
Sharp serrated bread knife
Pastry brush

Pre-Preparations - Do all of this stuff in advance to simplify the final cooking process so you can avoid being in the kitchen too much after your guests arrive. You want your kitchen time to seem effortless, right?

24 hours ahead of time
Put frozen shrimp and sea scallops in refrigerator to thaw, leaving them in their sealed bags.

Earlier in the day of the meal
Prepare topping for Bruschetta
Finely dice 3 Roma tomatoes, then place them on folded paper towel to drain excess moisture
Finely dice 2 tablespoons sliced green olives
Put ingredients in smallish bowl
Add 2 tablespoons of crumbled gorgonzola cheese (more or less)
Whisk 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar in separate bowl.
Add oil/vinegar emulsion to ingredients and stir to mix and coat evenly.
Cover bowl with foil.

In small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add large pinch of Italian herbs and generous shake of granulated dry garlic. Microwave for 30 second and mix. Put aside for use later to butter bruschetta slices.

Prepare vegetables for pasta dish
Slice caps of shitake mushrooms into strips. Discard stems.
Slice small sweet peppers into thin rounds to make one cup
Cut tips off asparagus bunches - about 3" long (save remainder of asparagus for another meal if desired)
Put prepped vegies in 1 gallon ziploc bag.
Add 1 tablespoon of Italian herbs, 1 tablespoon of minced garlic and pinch of pepper to bag with vegetables.
Slice 4 Roma tomatoes into 1/4" thick slices, and then stack and quarter those slices. Leave skin on tomatoes.
Put tomatoes in second ziploc bag, and put both bags in refrigerator until needed.
For salad, slice green onions into thin rounds. Peel and slice cucumber thinly. Combine these ingredients and set aside.

Other Prep work
Use serrated bread knive to slice baguette bread diagonally to make oval slices 1/2" thick.. You'll need 10-12 slices. Place bread slices in a separate ziploc bag and set aside at room temperature.
If frozen shrimp still have tails, remove tails from thawed shrimp and return to refrigerator.
Rinse off salad greens and wash small tomatoes.
Set table. Add a couple of large serving spoons, salad server tongs, and put a large trivet on the table if you're cooking in a large skillet on the range.
Get cooking pots and pans out. Fill pasta cooking pot with water and put on stove. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of salt, and a big pinch of italian herbs to the water and cover.
Put out small plates and napkins where you will serve the appetizers.

Clean up your mess, and then have a nice glass of wine to celebrate finishing these steps. Later, you'll appreciate having done all of this ahead of time.

When Your Guests Arrive
Greet your guests and chat a bit. Have a cocktail or sip some wine. When you're ready to get started, excuse yourself for about 10-15 minutes.

Make Bruschetta Appetizers (10-15 minute cooking time)
In kitchen, turn on electric skillet and set at 325 degrees or heat large skillet to medium heat.. Use pastry brush to brush olive oil/butter/herb mixture on both sides of baguette slices. Place slices in skillet, then turn them over several times until both sides are nice and golden toasty. Remove from skillet and place on serving dish or tray. Turn off skillet or gas flame. Leave whatever resididue that is in the skillet there. Put about 1 rounded tablespoon of the cold tomato/olive/cheese mixture on each slice, spreading lightly to cover. Take serving plate triumphantly out to guests and don't forget your own bruschetta. Sip more wine and enjoy.

When it's time to get serious about dinner, you'll need about 30 minutes in the kitchen.

Preparing Pasta and Salad (25-30 minutes)
Immediately turn on range burner under pasta cooking pan to high. Do this first of all. It takes time to heat pasta water for cooking.

Put salad greens in large salad bowl. Add green onion rounds, cucumber, salad tomatoes and crumbled gorgonzola cheese to taste. Dress with good blue cheese dressing and toss well to coat all ingredients. Put salad on table.

Turn on electric skillet and set for 325 degrees, or heat renge-top skillet with medium flame.
Add 2 tablespoons each of butter and olive oil to skillet and distribute evenly.
When oil is hot, add mushrooms, peppers, and aspragus and seasonings from bag to skillet and stir occasionally.
Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in smaller skillet on range, heat on medium-low
When vegetables are tender and asparagus is still somewhat firm, add the heavy cream to the skillet. Continue cooking until the cream is bubbling, then reduce heat (275 degrees) and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally. After about five minutes, add a handful of the shredded three-cheese mix to thicken the sauce, stirring until smooth and well combined. Add salt and pepper to taste.

By this time, the water in the pasta cooking pot should be boiling and the small skillet shoud be hot. If the water's not boiling wait until it is before continuing.

Add dry pasta to the boiling water. When boiling resumes, stir vigorously to make sure pasta is separated.

Add thawed, cooked shrimp to the skillet and stir to mix with the cream sauce and vegetables. The shrimp are already cooked. They only need to be warmed through.
Place the thawed, raw sea scallops flat into the smaller skillet. At this time, you can announce that dinner will be on the table very soon, so guests can wander into the dining area. Don't linger, though. Return to the kitchen at once.
Turn the sea scallops in the small skillet. Do not overcook. Total cooking time should be only about 5 minutes. As soon as they are white and translucent, they are done. If they are overcooked they will be tough.
Add the cooked scallops and any liquid in the small skillet to the large skillet. Stir to distribute and mix ingredients. Do not increase skillet temperature.

Check the pasta. It should be done. If it's tender, it's ready. Drain and add to the large skillet and mix everything gently to make sure all of the pasta has been coated with the cream sauce and that ingredients are evenly distributed. Top with the remaining shredded three-cheese mixture and carry the entire electric skillet out to the table and your eager guests. If you used a stove-top skillet, you already put a large trivet on the table, right? If not, do that before carrying in that heavy skillet. Allow guests to serve themselves, family style, directly from the skillet.

Raise your own glass, serve yourself and enjoy the compliments. You're done.

I won't speak of cleaning up after dinner. Surely the maid will do that, right? You do have a maid, of course.

[samnsara]

1. if I had a maid shed be cooking this right now for me :)

[MineralMan]

2. What? No Maid?

Shocking.

Actually, after my guests went home, I cleaned up, as usual. What a mess!

[RKP5637]

3. What time's dinner? n/t

[MineralMan]

4. It all got et up.

[RKP5637]

6. Darn, that sure sounds good!!! n/t

[MineralMan]

10. It wasn't bad.

The couple who came to dinner with their millennial daughter are good friends. We trade dinners a couple of times a year. The woman in that couple is a pretty good cook, but is timid in her cooking. Every time they come over, she asks for my recipes for whatever meal I made. So, I write them up, as I did this one. Then, she duplicates them for other guests of hers. I have to write them out in detail, so she won't get bogged down in the process and get frustrated.

One time, when it was her turn to make dinner for us, we got over there, and she had pulled out one of my dinner menu recipes and made it for us, forgetting that I had made the identical menu a couple of years before. Her husband mentioned that and everyone rolled on the floor over it.

Anyhow, as long as I'm writing it out anyhow, I thought I'd share it here. It is a good combination, as it turns out.

[Ohiogal]

5. My head was spinning reading this "no stress recipe"!

Hope it was worth it!

[MineralMan]

8. It actually is a no-stress recipe.

I know it sounds complicated, but it's really not at all.

I write recipes in long form to help people plan and execute them efficiently and without worry. There's actually only about an hour and a half total involved, including shopping.

The key is doing as much of the prep work in advance and taking the steps in order. Pasta dishes are about as simple as can be to prepare, once you're used to doing them. The sea scallops are the only fiddly bit in this recipe. If they're right, they're tender as butter, and are always a big hit with people, who usually never see them on their plate.

The bruschetta is also dead simple. It's also delicious, and guaranteed to be popular with guests.

The salad is a throw-away, really. Some nice greens, bleu cheese dressing and gorgonzola make it seem special, but it takes no work at all.

The pasta ends up going together quickly and you're not in the kitchen forever, so you can enjoy your own dinner party.

As usual, I wrote the recipe after making the meal. It sounds complicated, but isn't really at all.

[Hortensis]

16. The way you wrote this out is really valuable.

It'd be fun to know the places where and to whom this might travel now that it's on the web. Like blowing a gift out on the wind.

My memory's bad enough that i have to write lists of steps like this to make sure I don't forget the bruschetta. I always have to separate out ingredients by dish. Garlic listed 3 times if needed, otherwise it''s liable to all get tossed thoughtlessly into the first dish that calls for it..

[MineralMan]

17. That's why I always write up recipes after attempting them.

That way, I can eliminate all of the mistakes I made.

Really, though, any time I'm going to be preparing a meal, especially one where I'm trying something new, I tend to rehearse the process mentally to get an idea of timing and to schedule steps in a sensible order. I remember the first time I was called on to produce a Thanksgiving meal for 12 people. As I started my mental planning, I realized that simply thinking about it was not going to be enough to pull it off without problems.

So, three days before the date, I wrote a shopping list, checking it multiple times before going to the supermarket. Then, I started working on a detailed schedule for preparations. I estimated the time each step would take, considered holding times for finished dishes, and looked for gaps that would allow me to do other tasks. I spend an entire day on that schedule, ending up with a two-page printed spreadsheet type of document with rows of cells broken down in 10-minute segments. I tried hard to include every step in the process, from prep to processes and cooking. I even had a list of bowls, tools, pots and pans, etc. I even scheduled a few breaks, so I could leave the kitchen, chat with family members, enjoy a glass of wine, etc.

The day before Thanksgiving, I read through the schedule several times. I made a few changes, too.

Then, on the big day, I followed the schedule as closely as I could. The result was a very smooth process that let me present the full menu of dishes at the appointed time, all at the right temperatures, in the right serving containers, and ready to go. I wasn't exhausted. Nothing went wrong. Best of all, nobody saw me being cross or upset by anything not going right. The best compliment I got was, "You made this all look so easy." It wasn't, but I'm glad it looked that way. Mental rehearsals are a great help.

Since then, I've made multiple big family holiday meals. I don't need that schedule any longer, since I've done it often enough to pretty much know when to do what. But, if I'm faced with a new big meal project, I still do a similar thing, although I can normally just plan it mentally and then bring it off OK. After the fact, it's easy to write about the process, and I can fix errors I may have made.

[left-of-center2012]

7. I was expecting ...

Dr Sheldon Cooper's spaghetti with hot dogs cut up in it.

[MineralMan]

9. That's good, too, but I wouldn't serve it to guests.

They expect something unexpected at my house. I try to amuse. My goal is always to seem like it's no big deal. Advanced prep and a planned mise en place is the key. That way, I get to enjoy the company and just slip out for a while before announcing dinner. I think the person who is cooking should also get to enjoy the party.

This menu is as simple as it gets when I'm cooking for guests. As far as they know, it just took me a few minutes. That's the goal.

[Phentex]

11. I like recipes written with a timeline like this...

although I raised an eyebrow at the ingredients list before I realized you were making separate things.

Sounds good!

[MineralMan]

12. That's always been my style of recipe writing.

That way, the reader gets a sense of process that can help make preparation simpler.

You're right. There were three dishes in this menu. I thought I'd try writing a recipe for a complete dinner menu in one document. Generally, I write recipes after the fact. I typically plan mentally for a new recipe, including all the prep and cooking steps. Once I've actually made the dish, I can further refine the process.

People who know me know that if they come to my house for dinner, they'll typically get a brand new recipe, done for the first time for their visit. Occasionally, that has worked out less well than I expected, but usually it comes out OK, and sometimes much better than that. I almost never cook from recipes, but have a recipe in mind from the time I start assembling ingredients.

My wife says, about my pasta dishes, "I don't think you've ever made the same thing twice." She's probably right.

I used to cook much more than I do now. I'm getting older, and my endurance in the kitchen is less than it was. I've always loved cooking. I remember sitting in my mother's kitchen, doing homework at the kitchen table as she prepared the family meals. She tended to talk while she cooked and about what she was doing. I sort of learned all of the techniques by osmosis through that process.

My mom was an excellent cook. I don't think I ever saw her cook from a recipe, although she had dozens of cookbooks. She read about cooking a lot, but generally just cooked without referencing anything. She'd say, "I think I'll make a cake." Then, she'd do just that, moving quickly and efficiently in the kitchen and doing something interesting and new each time.

I've often talked to her about cooking. She has always said that once you know the techniques and typical proportions for different dishes, you don't need recipes. You just make what's in your mind to make. So, I learned the techniques and have been cooking now for over 50 years. Now, I guess I cook like my mother, although in a very different style.

[Saviolo]

13. Nice, nice!

I have a couple of recipes myself that I prefer for entertaining with shrimp and scallops, but they're more of a side dish or a snack food.

Like yours, a lot of this can be (should be) done in advance.
For the shrimp, I like to get the uncooked peel-and-eat variety. Get a frying pan good and hot and melt some butter or heat up some nice high smoke-point oil. Toss in some slices of serrano or thai bird chiles, and place your shrimp in. Wait until they're cooked mostly through, and then flip them over to get the other side cooked mostly through, and the carryover should finish them off. Place in a large bowl with the resultant brown butter and hot pepper rings, and refrigerate until folks come over. Makes a tasty snack to take the edge off of appetites, and give people something to do.

For scallops, I love to get some nice thin sheets of prosciutto, lay the scallop on it, a tiny sprinkle of black pepper, a dab of truffle oil, and a couple of drops of lime juice, then wrap them entirely in the prosciutto. They do not need extra salt, the parmaham is salty enough, I promise (learn from my mistakes, kids!). Lay them on a plate and refrigerate until just before serving. Pop them into a nice hot pan (oil can be used, but is not required) until they just barely spring back after you press on them. This should mean that the scallop is cooked and hopefully the prosciutto is a little crisp in places, with a bit of sear here and there. Works great as the "surf" in a surf-and-turf dish.

[MineralMan]

14. Sounds lovely!

I, too, like to start with raw shrimp, if they will be served on their own. For this dish, though, cooked frozen shrimp are fine. Your scallop recipe, too sounds delightful. I'll try that soon. I would serve that as an appetizer, as is.

[Saviolo]

15. Basically my take on bacon-wrapped scallops

And any sort of cured aged ham like prosciutto will work. Speck, parma ham, iberico, any of those rich salty cured and thin-sliced hams. Fatty if you can get it!