taglierini with a simple sweet tomato sauce and shrimp

method

Taglierini is a similar shape to fettuccine or egg noodles and lends itself well to creamy, buttery or light tomato-based sauces and especially little seafood numbers like this one. Feel free to use tagliatelle as well.

Blanch and skin the tomatoes (see pages 110—11), then halve them and chop into small pieces.
Put a pan of salted water on to heat for the pasta. Put the butter and a couple of glugs of olive oil in a second pan, and fry the shrimp, garlic, lemon zest and tomatoes for a couple of minutes. Add the booze and allow to flame if you like. (The flame should go out after about 30 seconds, so don’t worry!) Add the cream, allow to simmer gently for a couple more minutes and then remove the pan from the heat. Season the sauce carefully with salt and pepper and the lemon juice.

Put the pasta into the boiling water — fresh will need only 3 minutes and dried will need to be cooked according to the package instructions. If your sauce has cooled down, reheat it now. When the pasta is cooked, drain it in a colander and then toss with the parsley in the pan in which it was cooked. Check the seasoning, then divide onto your serving plates with the sauce on top. Serve right away, telling your guests to stir the pasta up in their bowls every so often to keep the pasta moist.

Try this: Crumble over a little ricotta or feta cheese — just a little bit — both of these cheeses have a nice texture, go really well with shrimp and make it look great.
And this: A handful of spinach added at the end gives a nice vibe — the heat will wilt it into the sauce.

Or this: You can use canned tomatoes for this dish, but you won’t get the freshness or lightness that you get from fresh tomatoes.

serves: 4

ingredients

• 8 plum tomatoes
• 2 good pats of butter
• extra virgin olive oil
• 101/2 oz small peeled shrimp
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 2 shots of Vecchia Romana or Cognac
• 11 tablespoons heavy cream
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 14oz fresh or dried taglierini
• 1 large handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped