CEIMB: Garlic-Basil Shrimp

Aah, this is more like it! Now, this is the kind of seafood dish I can really enjoy! For this week's Craving Ellie in My Belly pick, we made Garlic-Basil Shrimp, chosen by Tea and Scones. This was a very simple dish, one that is easy to prepare (even easier if you bought your shrimp already cooked, like we did) and tastes very fresh. The shrimp we had purchased was some yummy smoked shrimp from a local farm/country store, so that saved us the step of cooking the shrimp. The other components of the dish were cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, and white wine. The shrimp and veggies are tossed on a bed of orzo at the end. Yum.

Even though the dish was pictured in Ellie's cookbook with the shrimp and tomato mixture sitting atop the orzo, we decided to throw the orzo into the pan after everything was finished cooking, and we just mixed everything together. I think it worked out well this way, as the orzo was truly able to absorb all the juices and liquids and assume those flavors.

If there was anything I would say about this meal in terms of improving upon it, I would say it seemed to really need some type of acid to balance out the mellowness of the sauce. It tasted great, and a sprinkling of fresh Parmesan cheese really did much to enhance its greatness, but a squirt of lemon juice over the top at the end would have made it just a little bit better. I would have tried that, if we had any lemons, but we didn't when I made this so it'll just motivate me to make this again sometime soon!

Thanks to Tea and Scones for the excellent pick. The recipe for Garlic-Basil Shrimp can be found here.