Shrimp Scampi - 5 stars

i've had quite the run of 5 star meals lately! lucky, lucky me. :) i did have a cataclysmic culinary failure last weekend that involved nearly burning the porch down, so that stopped my parade of fantastic meals. but, we'll not talk about that right now though.

this was the best shrimp scampi i've made to date. i stopped buying frozen shrimp (a.k.a flavorless, tough, shriveled shrimp) awhile ago, and i now buy large, fresh, peeled prawns from the fish counter at uwajimaya. they run around $11/lb, so they're an indulgence, but well worth the price. i bought ~ 1 lb for this dish, rinsed them, patted them dry and tossed them with 1 1/2 tsp Emeril's Essence, which can be found at the bottom of this post.

i put the prawns in the fridge while i prepared the rest of the meal: chopped a couple cloves of garlic, set out four tbsp of cubed unsalted butter, measured out a half cup of dry white wine and a quarter cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice. i also chopped up one tbsp fresh parsley, made a green salad and boiled the linguine.

to assemble the dish, i first preheated one tbsp olive oil + one tbsp of the unsalted butter in a large (12"), heavy duty flat skillet over medium high heat. i added the shrimp and sauteed for a couple minutes. then the garlic went into the pan, which i sauteed for 30 seconds, and then i added the white wine and lemon juice and let it simmer and reduce, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes. i added the remaining 3 tbsp of butter, stirred until it was melted, tossed in the fresh parsley and seasoned with salt and pepper.

i used 8 oz of dried barilla linguine to serve with this - boiled to al dente, which takes around 6 minutes, i believe. it was the perfect amount of linguine for this particular scampi recipe. yummy!