Rapini, shrimp and pasta

Last night was a little crunch time - I also had to get rid of a bunch of things from my pantry.

Broccoli Rabe looked good at the store, so I got a one pound bunch - I have never been too successful at cooking this without conjuring up evil bitter flavors from this ugly vegetable. Well, the floret part of the rapini was already starting to flower, so I'd better get my culinary butt in gear. I also had some large shrimp, three lasagna noodles (From when? I don't know), and some white wine.

Here's what I used:

6 shrimp, tailless and shelled, butterflied, then seasoned.

1 pound of rapini (broccoli rabe)

1 large shallot

3 cloves garlic

3 sheets of lasagna - broken

1 cup white wine

1 teaspoon butter

1 teaspoon olive oil

20 leaves parsley

one can of diced tomatoes, drained and liquid reserved

I washed the rapini and trimmed about an inch from the bottom. After cutting the rest into bite-sized lengths, I brought an inch of water to a boil in a 6 quart stockpot and steamed the rapini for 8 minutes. After steaming, I shocked the veggies by rapidly cooling them with ice-cold water. Set the rapini aside. I added more water to the stockpot and brought it back to boil. While the water was heating, I finely diced the shallot, minced the garlic and minced the parsley.

In a very small shallow pan, I melted the butter with the olive oil. Over medium heat, I lightly browned the butter (just evaporating the water). I lightly browned the shallot and garlic in the butter then added the wine and tomato liquid (I just used my hand to drain the juice from the can right over the pan). Reduce the liquid by at least half over low heat.

Meanwhile, when the water in the stockpot returned to a boil, I dropped the lasagna noodles in. Since these noodles were probably old, they took almost 12 minutes to get al dente. Drain noodles from stckpot. Add drained noodles to sauce, then add the tomatoes from the can and cover. Remove from heat. It should get warm, but if it doesn't, you may reheat over medium flame for a few minutes.

Return the stockpot to the stove and spray lightly with cooking spray. Add the rapini back to the stockpot and gently reheat over low flame.

Line a small shallow dish with non-stick aluminum foil and place shrimp in hot oven for 4-6 minutes until just firm.

For serving, since it was just me, I used a mixing bowl and put half of the rapini in the bottom of the bowl. I put the hot shrimp on top, and then ladled a third of the pasta and tomato sauce over the whole thing. I had a glass of that same leftover wine with dinner and I ate too much!

You could use just about any pasta noodles you have on hand - I don't think Japanese buckwheat pasta would be too good. If you don't like shrimp - use something else - or omit the protein all together - I think even hardboiled eggs would be tasty.

Blanching the rapini got rid of that bitterness I think.