Gorgonzola Shrimp Pasta

June, and the summer opens with the particular generosity that the Lowcountry brings to its warmest season — long days, warm nights, the marsh alive with birdsong and the particular hum of insects that is the soundtrack of every Southern childhood and every Southern kitchen with the windows open. I open the kitchen windows in June because Mama always opened them in Beaufort, and the opening is a tradition that serves no practical purpose (the air conditioning is more efficient) but that connects this kitchen to the parsonage kitchen through the shared language of open windows and moving air.

James has started his summer internship at the Columbia law firm. He drives to Columbia on Monday mornings and returns on Friday evenings, and the house is different without him during the week — quieter, more female, the way the house was before he was born, when it was just me and Robert and the books and the silence that two people who love each other can sustain without it becoming lonely.

Carrie is working at the public library this summer — my library, my system, though she is stationed at a different branch, which I insisted on because the daughter of the regional coordinator should not work in the regional coordinator's office, and the insistence was both professional and personal: I want Carrie to discover the library on her own terms, not on mine. She shelves books. She helps with story hour. She is, she told me on Wednesday, "obsessed with the Dewey Decimal System," which is a sentence that has never been spoken by a seventeen-year-old before and that made me so proud I had to sit down.

Mama's Alzheimer's has reached a point where the words are fewer and the silences are longer. She speaks in fragments now — not sentences but phrases, not paragraphs but words. "Kitchen." "Flowers." "James." The words are the peaks of a mountain range whose valleys have flooded — the tops still visible, still recognizable, still carrying meaning, but the connections between them submerged. I listen for the peaks. I fill in the valleys. And the filling is love, and the love is a form of translation, and the translation is the most important work I do.

I made shrimp salad — the summer standby, cold shrimp on lettuce with Mama's homemade remoulade. The remoulade is the recipe I know best and the one that carries the most memory per tablespoon: Duke's mayo, Creole mustard, capers, lemon, a touch of horseradish that Mama calls "the surprise." The surprise is what makes it Mama's. Every great cook has a surprise. The surprise is the thing that makes people say, "This tastes like yours and nobody else's." Mama's surprise is horseradish. Mine, when I find it, will be something else. I am still looking.

Mama’s shrimp salad with remoulade is a cold dish, a June dish, a standing-at-the-counter dish — and I will keep making it every summer for as long as my hands know how. But on the evenings James comes home from Columbia and Carrie comes home smelling like library shelves and old paper, I want something that fills the kitchen with warmth and pulls everyone to the table before I even call them. This gorgonzola shrimp pasta is that dish: the shrimp still the star, still honoring Mama’s instinct that good shrimp needs only a sauce brave enough to stand beside it, but transformed into something that feeds a family who has been apart all week and needs, more than anything, to be in the same room together.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

12 oz linguine or fettuccine
1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cup heavy cream
4 oz gorgonzola cheese, crumbled, plus more for garnish
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining. Drain and set aside.
Season the shrimp. Pat shrimp dry with paper towels. Season lightly with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes on both sides.
Sear the shrimp. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp in a single layer and cook 1—2 minutes per side until pink and just cooked through. Transfer to a plate and tent loosely with foil.
Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add remaining tablespoon of butter to the same skillet. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds until fragrant. Pour in white wine and scrape up any browned bits from the pan. Simmer 2 minutes until wine reduces by half.
Add the cream and gorgonzola. Pour in heavy cream and stir in the crumbled gorgonzola. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the cheese melts and the sauce thickens slightly, about 4—5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Combine. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss to coat, adding reserved pasta water a splash at a time if the sauce is too thick. Return the shrimp to the pan and toss gently to warm through, about 1 minute.
Finish and serve. Stir in lemon juice and lemon zest. Divide among bowls. Garnish with additional crumbled gorgonzola and fresh parsley. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Gorgonzola Shrimp Pasta — When Mama’s Remoulade Leads You Back to the Water