1 lb of Italian penne pasta
1/2 lb frozen tiger shrimp, thawed, shelled and deveined.
1 bag frozen artichokes (or 2 fresh ones, cleaned and cut in wedges)
4 medium tomatoes, ripe but firm
4 leaves of fresh basil, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved
2 tbsp of Italian extra virgin olive oil
Italian sea salt
Dice the tomatoes, put them in a bowl along with garlic, basil amd salt. Stir and set aside to marinate, allowing tomatoes to pull out their juice.
In the mean time, bring a large pot of water to boil; when water boils add salt cook artichokes to your desired doneness. Drain them and set aside.
In the meantime, warm up the olive oil in a skillet and sear shrimp on both sides, then stir in artichokes.
Bring water back to a boil, add pasta and stir.
At the same time, add the tomatoes with thier juice in the skillet with artichokes and shrimp, stirring. Cook for about 5 minutes.
Once al dente, drain the pasta, transfer it in the skillet and toss it with the sauce, sautee for a couple of minutes and serve.
This recipe is for 4-6 people depending on what else is served.
- For this recipe, a short cut pasta is better, as long as it's high quality.
- Shortcut: use good artichoke hearts packed in oil, like the ones we sell, and shelled, deveined shrimp; in this case, add the thawed shrimp to the sauce at the end of cooking, so they won't become tough. Also, you can use a very good pasta sauce like our Pomodorina!
- Add a little heat to your dish by sauteeing a dry Italian hot red pepper in the olive oil before searing the shrimp.
- Don't add oil to the pasta water: it will coat your pasta and prevent sauce from sticking to your pasta. Just stir it for the first minute or so.
- Always save some of the cooking water, in case your sauce thickens too much.
- If you don't like the tomato peel, peel them this way: make a cross on the bottom of the tomatoes, put them in boiling water for 30 seconds or 1 minute depending on their size, remove them from water and the peel will come away easily.
- It's lactose free. It can be gluten free if you use gluten free Italian pasta.
