Recipe for Ina Garten’s Linguine with Shrimp Scampi
Recipe for Tyler Florence’s Shrimp Scampi with Linguine
I now have two favorite recipes for shrimp scampi with linguine. Tyler Florence’s Shrimp Scampi with Linguine,
from his cookbook,” Stirring the Pot” and Ina Garten’s recipe for linguine with shrimp scampi. from her cookbook,
“Barefoot Contessa, Family Style.”
What’s the Difference?
Ina Gartens recipe is lemony, garlicky and buttery. Totally different from Tyler Florence’s recipe.
His creamy, garlicky, with lots of fresh tomato and basil flavor.
Both wonderful and totally different.
Serve either with a caesar salad and some warm bread, you have a feast fit for a king.
One tip about shrimp, buy shrimp that is still frozen. When you get it home and are ready to start cooking,
defrost the shrimp in brine.
Soaking shrimp in a brine—a solution of salt and water—will help ensure moister, juicier results.
How a brine works
Moisture loss is inevitable when you cook any type of muscle fiber. Heat causes raw individual coiled proteins in the fibers to unwind—the technical term is denature—and then join together with one another, resulting in some shrinkage and moisture loss. (By the way, acids, salt, and even air can have the same denaturing effect on proteins as heat.) Normally, meat loses about 30 percent of its weight during cooking. But if you soak the meat in a brine first, you can reduce this moisture loss during cooking to as little as 15 percent, according to Dr. Estes Reynolds, a brining expert at the University of Georgia.
Brining enhances juiciness in several ways. First of all, muscle fibers simply absorb liquid during the brining period. Some of this liquid gets lost during cooking, but since the meat is in a sense more juicy at the start of cooking, it ends up juicier. We can verify that brined meat and fish absorb liquid by weighing them before and after brining. Brined meats typically weigh six to eight percent more than they did before brining—clear proof of the water uptake.
Another way that brining increases juiciness is by dissolving some proteins. A mild salt solution can actually dissolve some of the proteins in muscle fibers, turning them from solid to liquid.
Of all the processes at work during brining, the most significant is salt’s ability to denature proteins. The dissolved salt causes some of the proteins in muscle fibers to unwind and swell. As they unwind, the bonds that had held the protein unit together as a bundle break. Water from the brine binds directly to these proteins, but even more important, water gets trapped between these proteins when the meat cooks and the proteins bind together. Some of this would happen anyway just during cooking, but the brine unwinds more proteins and exposes more bonding sites. As long as you don’t overcook the meat, which would cause protein bonds to tighten and squeeze out a lot of the trapped liquid, these natural juices will be retained.
Brining basics
Small pieces of seafood like shrimp shouldn’t sit in a brine for more than half an hour. In fact, any meat that’s brined for too long will dry out and start to taste salty as the salt ends up pulling liquid out of the muscle fibers.
Brining guidelines
Recipe for Ina Garten’s Linguine with Shrimp Scampi
Recipe for Tyler Florence’s Shrimp Scampi with Linguine
