White Shrimp Pasta - Just the Recipe

A very tasty pasta dish that can be prepared in the time that it takes to boil the water and cook the linguine.

White Shrimp Sauce

2 tbs. butter
3 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 small onion, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
pinch sage
2 oz. white wine
1 cup whipping cream
2 oz. chicken stock
1 lb. small or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 lb. linguine, cooked and drained

In a saucepan or wok on medium heat melt the butter and add the garlic, onion, and shallot and sauté for a few minutes until the onion is softened.

Add the sage, wine, cream and chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes or until slightly thickened.

Add the shrimp and cook until the shrimp turn pink, about 3 minutes.

Add the cooked linguine to the pan and toss to coat. Allow to sit for a few minutes, then toss the linguine again and serve.

Nonna's Lasagna

Without doubt or bias my mother’s lasagna is the best darn lasagna you will ever taste and that’s not just my opinion. Just ask anyone who has had the pleasure of savouring a plate of this stuff and they will salivate at any mention of it. My son always asks his grandmother if lasagna will be served for a special dinner, though he need not ask as it always is the first course of a celebration dinner. On the rare occasions that lasagna isn’t served, my husband has become quite indignant at its absence. My son and my nephew, both huge fans of this dish, will gladly forego the second course for a second helping.

My mother will gladly share her recipe, with pride, to anyone who asks, and as a matter of fact she might just volunteer to show you how. She doesn't have this recipe written anywhere, and as a matter of fact, unlike me, she rarely cooks with a recipe. My nephew Rob and his girlfriend Chantal recently went over for a lesson and wrote all about it http://petitpear.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/a-family-cookbook-lasagna/. You can just imagine how happy my mother was when after she taught them how, they volunteered to make lasagna for Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious! So where did my mother learn to make such amazing lasagna? The story I was told long, long ago was that my uncle, a pastry chef, who lived with us at the time, had a chef friend who came over for dinner and volunteered to cook a lasagna for dinner for us. Not a bad little deal, and in the process my mother learned to make it.
This lasagna is made up of four components; the pasta, a really simple but flavourful bolognese sauce, a bechamel sauce, and two cheeses, parmigiano and mozzerella.

What really surprised me was that she had never heard of lasagna when she lived in Italy over 55 years ago. Maybe it was a southern Italian specialty that just hadn't made it up north at that time. With my curiosity peaked, I googled “origins of lasagna” and was surprised that a recipe for loseyn, pronounced lasan was found in what is believed to be the first cookbook written in England back in the 14th century, a dish of layers of pasta, sauce, and meat. There would not have been a tomato based sauce here as the tomato would not be imported to England for another two hundred years. Did the English really have pasta back then? It is highly unlikely that it all started in England as there is evidence of similar layering of pasta and cheese recipes prior to the 14th century from Italy. The latin word lasanum translates to cooking chamber and the dish that was prepared in it later took the name of the vessel in which it was cooked in.

However it came to be I’m just glad that the chef who came over all those years ago decided to make lasagna for us because we have been enjoying it ever since. I don't make lasagna nearly as often as my mother does, but I made this one a few weeks ago and although my son insists that nobody makes it like Nonna, it didn't stop him from going for seconds.

Nonna's Lasagna

2 pkg. Lasagna Noodles
1 recipe of meat sauce
1 recipe of Béchamel sauce
1b. Mozzarella cheese
Parmigiano cheese
2 tbsp. butter

Bolognese Sauce

2 oz. Olive oil
1 Onion, chopped
2 Cloves garlic, minced
1 Stalk celery, diced
1 Carrot, chopped very fine
2 lbs. Ground beef, veal and pork
2 tbsp. Tomato paste
2 Bay leaves
Pinch Nutmeg
6 oz. Red wine
3 – 28 oz cans Peeled tomatoes, crushed
1 cup Beef stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large pot and sauté the onion, garlic, celery and carrot for about 5 minutes. Add the meat and cook until browned. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in tomato paste. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer over low heat for 1 hour.

Béchamel Sauce

4 tbsp. Butter
4 tbsp. Flour
1/8 tsp. Nutmeg
2 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste

In a small saucepan melt butter and add the flour stirring for a few minutes. Do not allow to brown or you will have to start over again. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper and add milk stirring constantly with a whisk to eliminate lumps. When the sauce is thickened and bubbly remove from the heat. If the sauce thicken as it sits just add more milk.

Cook the lasagna noodles in a large pot of salted boiling water until cooked to desired doneness.
Drain in colander and rinse with cold water and lay out noodles on a piece of parchment paper or waxed paper or a clean tablecloth.

Grease a 9” x 13” baking pan. Lightly coat the bottom with a few spoonfuls of sauce. Then top with a single layer of lasagna then a light coat of béchamel sauce and a few tablespoon of meat sauce to cover pasta evenly and top the sauce with a sprinkling of grated mozzarella cheese and parmigiano cheese. Continue this layering until you reach the top of the pan ending with sauce and a light sprinkling of cheese and then dot with butter. At this point it can be covered and refrigerated until ready to bake or covered with plastic and aluminum foil and put into the freezer.
Remove from freezer remove the plastic and thaw before baking.

Bake at 350 F. for about 1 hour.

Let cool ten minutes so that it doesn’t fall apart when serving.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

It is believed that this Roman dish was developed during the Second World War when American soldiers stationed in Italy supplied bacon and eggs to Italians who made this pasta dish and cooked it over charcoal, hence the name carbonara which is derived from the Italian word for charcoal. But the origin of Spaghetti alla Carbonara is obscure and another theory is that it was fed to coalminers to provide them with a substantial and nourishing meal. Yet another theory is that it was made with squid ink that gave it a charcoal colour. I’d heard that it was called Spaghetti alla Carbonara because the generous sprinkling of freshly ground pepper resembled charcoal. How ever it originated it is a fast and delicious pasta to make and when I want to make something quick or don’t particularly feel like cooking, this dish fits the bill.

I was taught to make it by my aunt in Italy over thirty years ago where it was simply made with eggs, pancetta, parmigiano cheese and pepper. But I have since adopted the North America version of adding cream, onions and bacon. We will be visiting Rome this summer and my husband will no doubt order this pasta, if it is on the menu, as it is one of his favourite pasta dish. It will be interesting to see how the Romans make it.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

2 tbsp. olive oil
8 slices of bacon or pancetta, chopped
1 small onion, diced
4 eggs
4 tablespoons cream
½ cup of grated parmigiano cheese
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste

Cook 450 gr. of spaghetti in boiling salted water.

In a large fry pan (I use a flat bottomed wok) heat oil and add onion and bacon and cook on medium high heat until the fat has rendered from the bacon without it getting crisp, turn down the heat to keep warm. In the meantime beat eggs and add the cream, parmigiano cheese and black pepper. Set aside. When the pasta is al dente, drain and add it to the bacon mixture and toss to coat. Quickly pour in the egg mixture and toss to coat the spaghetti, the heat of the pasta will cook the egg. Serve and enjoy.

Pollo Bianca

Many years ago the Toronto Star Starweek (a weekly TV guide) had a column called Mary McGrath's Chef’s Showcase where a reader could ask that a favourite recipe from a restaurant be featured. I have cut out many recipes from this section that appealed to me, especially if they were pasta dishes or great desserts. A wonderful carrot cake was featured here and has remained a favourite ever since. There are several recipes that I have torned out from this section that I've made over and over again and Pollo Bianca by chef Sandra Vattay of Pimentos is one of them. Pollo Bianca (gramatically I think it should be Pollo Bianco and that's what we call it), translated means White Chicken and the dish is aptly named because all the main ingredients are pretty much colourless; chicken breast, onions, garlic, mushrooms and cream, white wine and chicken stock. The only colour is in the sundried tomatoes and rosemary and the tri-coloured pasta.



It is one of those pasta dishes that you prepare when you don’t feel like cooking and spending hours tending a pot. It is also a recipe you make if you want to impress your guests - it's that good. That is also why I though this pasta dish would be a perfect entry for Presto Pasta Nights www.prestopastanights.com #156 hosted by Our Taste of Life and created by http://bernardosworld.blogspot.com. Pollo Bianca is a creamy chicken pasta dish simply flavoured with a bit of fresh rosemary which I snip off from two of my rosemary plants. I prepare all the ingredients before hand and place them in small bowls. Once this is done I put on a large pot of water to boil the tri-coloured fusilli (or rotini as I've use here) and then I cook the sauce. It could not be easier, and honestly you’ll wonder how something so good didn’t take hours to make.

It has been many years since I've cut out this recipe and I wonder if Pimento is still around and if Sandra Vattay is still chef there, probably not I imagine, as restaurants and chefs come and go and just as columns come and go as well, Chef Showcase is no longer featured in Toronto Starweek. I really miss it and I'm sure a lot of readers miss it as well.

Pollo Bianca

2 tbsp. butter
8 oz. boneless chicken breast, diced
salt and pepper
1 small onion
4 oz. mushrooms, quartered
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp. dry white wine
½ cup chicken stock
1 to 1½ cups whipping cream
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped
1 oz. oil-packed sundried tomatoes, chopped
1½ cups cooked fusilli pasta (you can use 3 cups)
chopped fresh parsley, garnish

In a sauté pan brown chicken in hot butter. Season with salt and pepper. Add onion, cook 1 minute then add mushrooms and cook 2 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute.
Deglaze pan with white wine, add chicken stock, cream, rosemary, and sundried tomatoes. Simmer gently until thickened. Add cooked pasta, parsley and spoon into two bowls. Garnish with fresh parmesan cheese if desired. Serve immediately.