I’m naughty. Not naughty in the “twirling neighborhood cats by their tail” way or not naughty in the “star of my own XXX-rated home movies”, but naughty. I’ll let Greek bureaucrats (Zaxopoulos) corner the home DVD market!
I was recently at the dentist’s and while waiting for the “as usual late dentist”out to attend to me, I was perusing the orphaned, often out-dated magazines that get donated to doctors’ offices all the time.
These magazines can be a great source of recipes. I help rid the world of back issues of magazines. Sometimes I see a good recipe, I rip out the page. Sometimes I see a few good recipes, I nick the whole magazine. Mea culpa.
In this instance, I don’t think Kalamata olives work. I used “Throumpes” olives which are cured and aged in salt, thus giving them their wrinkled look. I soaked them in water to rid them of their saltyness.
Another important aspect of this dish is using quality feta. Cheap, grocery store feta is usually of cow’s milk, crumbled, in a plastic bag or small container and offensively salty. Also, there are many pretenders to feta and in Europe, only this style of cheese made in Greece can be called Feta.
The bottom line, this is a an easy dish with some remarkably simple flavours: starch from the linguine, sweet shrimp, salty feta, smoky roasted tomato and savoury olive. Use quality ingredients and this siple dish will shine.
Greco Linguine
(for four)
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
1 pint of cherry tomatoes, oven roasted with their juices
1/2 cup pitted black olives (Throumpes), halved 1 Tbsp. dried Greek oregano
splash of balsamic vinegar
1 green zucchini, halved & cut into semi-circle pieces
24 medium-sized shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 cup of crumbled feta
1 cup of chopped fresh parsley
Extra-virgin olive oil for finishing
1lb. of linguine
some pasta water
- In a large pot, get some water to a boil. Add a good amount of salt when the water comes to a boil and cook your linguine according to the package’s instructions.
- In a large skillet, add your olive oil and bring up to a medium high heat. Add your garlic and cook for a minute. Now add your cherry tomatoes, oregano, olives and simmer for 1o-12 minutes.
- Add a splash of balsamic vinegar, your zucchini and shrimp and stir in. Leave the skillet on the burner but turn off the heat.
- When your linguine is cooked, strain the pasta and then add it immediately to the sauce along with the feta and parsley. Toss to coat the pasta well for about 5 minutes. The residual heat from the hot pasta should finish cooking your shrimp.
- Drizzle some good extra-virgin olive oil on top.
Peter, I’ve been tempted a lot of times to rip out pages of recipes at many places but I haven’t dared to do it (yet) but nevertheless you gave us another delicious recipe. I agree with the cherry tomatoes and you are right, Greek feta is not to be compared with other white cheese imitations.
I thought I was the only rebel. Personally, I think that people become dentists because they enjoy torturing people so it is only fair that we permanently borrow their magazines. . .I mean really. . .have you ever seen a dentist that had silent drilling tools and asked if they could *not* shoot you in the mouth with a needle if you are getting a filling. They come up with all kinds of drugs in the world, so how about a drug, that isn’t gas either, that just takes the pain away and you can still drive home after wards? Okay, it’s out of my system, *really* =).
Your Greco Linguine looks ful of flavor and I completely agree about store bought Feta cheese. I have the luxury of having a specialty cheese store in Seattle and I purchase a lot of my cheese there. I have a collection of MANY cooking magazines and I have never heard of the Chalelaine Magazine. Is it a Canadian magazine? Marvelous dish and I also want to pipe in that I have never tried skate before. Great picture of the skate wing but I may need to ease into that one. . .=D. I am back to my coconut tart with passion fruit cream. Talk to you soon,
Shandy@pastryheaven.
Your linguine looks absolutely delicious, makes my mouth waterings I have to agree with you Greek feta as well Greek yogurt are the best
I work in a doctor’s office Peter and we are only too happy to photo copy pages in Chatelaine…wink..wink…I always do that instead of buying the magazine myself. The shrimp/pasta dish looks very flavourful and right up there with the lighter flavours we are craving in our “less is more” 2008 mode.
Hmm, most of the magazines at my dentist’s office are 2 years old and are about parenting or woodworking or something, LOL. This looks delicious! I love shrimp, feta and olives together. Actually, that very combo is on my menu this week (but with kalamatas). I might swap out the dish I was going to make with this instead, though. I love the zucchini and balsamic in this.
Peter you make such fantastic meals!
I must confess, I’m guilty of doing that a couple of times!! Such a great combination of flavors Peter,looks delicious!!
wow! This is simple and delicious. Definitely a must try.
He, he, he! You are a “pillo”!!! I don’t think that is a problem for the dentist… here in Spain they are sooooooooo expensive that you could take all the magazines with you withouth guilty feelings.
The linguine look delicious!!! I have to try the splash of balsamic vinegar though!
Naughty Peter! You really got me laughing there, especially about the Greek bureaucrats!
Count me in as a recipe nicker (although I dump – er, donate — all my old magazines at my dentist/doctors offices, so I figure it all balances out in the end).
I completely agree with you about Kalamata olives – I don’t like cooking with them and far prefer using throumbes or other dried or oil cured olives. Their flavor is far superior in cooked dishes, at least for my taste buds.
Oh, Peter, what a delicious dish! I’m always interested in new ways of cooking pasta.
Ivy, the only feta is Greek feta.
Shandy, Chatelaine is Canadian.
Val, be content that I share the recipes from the “liberated” magazines.
Proud Italian, I’m so pleased to see you visit my blog!
Nuria, what’s a “pillo”?
Laurie, the Throumpes were a perfect match for this.
Patricia, this was a winner!
This pasta does sound amazing with shrimp, olives, feta, lots of fresh herbs, and oven roasted tomatoes. mmm…
Always looking for a new recipe for using fresh shrimp. And I do believe all of those bold flavors will be marching into one of my pans soon!
Now that’s my kind of Food! One I shall make in the near future, for sure. YUM!
It’s someone that’s naughty and cunning at the same time. It’s an adjective usually used to describe kids that do what they shouldn’t do.
God, these recipes are making me really hungry … especially this one. Yum, yum yum!