A Tale Of Two Linguines

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​A TALE OF TWO LINGUINES

      In a post from last week (2/22/2021,"The COVID Anniversary") I included this picture of  the seafood pasta that I made for Tom's and my anniversary dinner.

     My niece Tracy, pictured below with her sweet family,

...requested that I share the recipe for the pasta in the picture, which I shall do tout de suite, following a little pasta provenance.
      It so happens that this seafood dish is a spin-up of an old perennial family favorite that in my recipe file is entitled Pasta Primavera, but which my family calls Linguine. ​

      Linguine has always been (and continues to be for family get-togethers) one of my children's most-requested dishes. I've been making Linguine - which is actually made with fettuccine, but we've always called it Linguine - for so long that I can't remember from where the recipe came. Did I find it in the food section of the Columbus Dispatch? On the back of a box of pasta or a soup mix package? Did I make it up? This I can no more recall than I can recall why we call it linguine and not fettuccine.
      But anyway, it was just recently - since I've been striving to up my home-cooking game during the restaurant-less COVID epidemic - that I came up with the idea of kicking the old Linguine up a notch by shuffling the ingredients. For example, one time I tried tossing in some shrimp. Another time I tried sautéing some chopped onions and garlic in olive oil then adding a can of diced tomatoes and fresh parsley, and then subtracting the broccoli from the standard Linguine recipe and substituting the sauté.
     When Tom's and my  44th wedding anniversary rolled around, as going out for a celebration dinner was out of the question in the midst of the still-percolating COVID epidemic, I was pondering what I could make for dinner that would be both celebratory and restaurant-esque.
      That's when I decided to try combining the ingredients of my two previous Linguine upgrades - the shrimp and the onion, garlic, and tomato sauté -  and adding a a couple more seafood items. I ended up adding some frozen mussels and frozen flaked lobster to the mix, and switching the fettuccine out for spaghetti, just for the sake of novelty.

      It was delish.       
    However, for the sake of those to whom the original linguine recipe might in fact seem more appealing than the seafood version - my children, for example who were scandalized that I would tinker with a family food tradition that they consider sacrosanct, not to mention that most of them are vegetarian or near-vegetarian - I'm going to give the recipe for Linguine as well as for Seafood Linguine, as I've christened the upgraded version. Also, though I'm going to give the recipe using fettuccine as that's what I use, feel free to use spaghetti, as pictured above, or even...linguine.
      So then, here are the two linguine recipes, Linguine and Seafood Linguine.

 ​       Recipe #1: Linguine   

      Ingredients:
   1 pound cooked buttered fettuccine (or whichever pasta you prefer) seasoned with salt and pepper 
     1 package Knorr vegetable recipe mix
     3 1/2 cups of milk
     1 tablespoon flour
     1/2 cup butter or margarine
     1 bunch (or as much as you want) cooked broccoli
​      salt and pepper to taste
     
       Method:
​      1. Cook one pound of fettuccine.

      2. Melt some butter over the cooked fettuccine and season with salt and pepper.       

       
​        3. In a large pot melt the 1/2 cup of butter. 

       
      4. Scald the milk in the microwave while the butter is melting. (This step isn't absolutely necessary but it makes the sauce boil faster if you start with hot milk).

     
​      5. Stir the tablespoon of flour and the vegetable recipe mix into the melted butter. 

     6. Stir in the hot milk.

​      7.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly (the constant stirring is important!) until the mixture just bubbles.

 
         8. Simmer the sauce for ten minutes longer, stirring from time to time.

        9. The broccoli can be cooked while the sauce is simmering, or you can cook the broccoli beforehand.

     10. When the sauce is finished simmering add the cooked broccoli,

     11. Then add the fettuccine.

     12. Toss, add salt to taste, and serve.

​      Recipe #2: Seafood Linguine

      Ingredients:
    1 pound cooked buttered fettuccine (or whichever pasta you prefer) seasoned with salt and pepper    
     1 package Knorr vegetable recipe mix
     3 1/2 cups of milk
     1 tablespoon flour
     1/2 cup butter or margarine
       3 or 4 tablespoons olive oil
      1/2 an onion, chopped
      2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic (or two cloves fresh garlic)
      1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
      fresh parsley
      1 pound frozen cooked shrimp, tails removed
       2  7 oz.packages imitation lobster
​       salt and pepper to taste
​       * In the recipe for the pasta pictured in my 2/22/2021 blog and in this blog,

...I used for the seafood ingredients one pound of frozen cooked shrimp, one package (about 1/2 pound) of frozen mussels and one package (about 1/2 pound) of frozen flaked lobster. However when I was shopping for ingredients to recreate the recipe here, I couldn't find any more mussels or frozen flaked lobster, so instead this time I  just  used 1 pound of frozen shrimp,

​...and two 7 oz. bags of frozen imitation lobster pieces.

     But you can really use any kind of seafood you'd like - or can find.

     Method:
    1. Thaw the shrimp (or you can rinse the shrimp for a few minutes under cold water just before you add them to the sauce) and imitation lobster pieces for several hours in the refrigerator. 
​      2. chop the onion.

      3.   Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat.

    4.  Sauté the onion and garlic for about three minutes, being careful not to burn the garlic.

       5. Add the tomatoes, parsley, and salt to taste and simmer for two minutes.

       6. Follow steps 1 through 8 of the Linguine recipe.

       7. While the sauce is simmering for ten minutes, rinse the shrimp and pull off the tails,

...and you can also during this time cut the imitation lobster chunks into smaller pieces if you wish.

     8. During the last 3 minutes of simmering, stir the tomato sauté and the seafood into the sauce.

       9. when the sauce has finished simmering stir in the fettuccine, salt and pepper to taste,

...and enjoy your Seafood Linguine!

...or your Linguine,

...this particular batch of which I dispatched to some hungry vegetarians across town.