Triple Shrimp Pasta

The original dinner plan was to serve a white creamy pasta dish with shavings of the newly bought truffle cheese, until I spotted the yet to be used dried baby shrimp resting beside a box of masago in my almost empty Friday night freezer.

The bag of dried baby shrimp (蝦皮) was originally bought for making chilli sauce. Baby dried shrimp is sometime mistaken as regular dried shrimp, which is more chewy and needs to be reconstituted before cooking. Baby dried shrimp, as the name explains, is dried "baby" shrimp, which can be used without pre-soaking. It is very flavorful and some brands can be very salty. It can be found at the fridge section (not freezer) at any Asian supermarket.

Masago is not shrimp eggs, but "Triple Shrimp" sounds cool isn't it? I also made my own cream sauce with whole wheat flour as white flour was not available. It's Friday night so I needed to make do with what I had.

Ingredients (made 2 adult portions)

1/2 lb white shrimp, peeled

2 tbs. dried baby shrimp (蝦皮), or more if you prefer

1 tbs. masago

1/2 box of Spaghetti or any other types of pasta

1 tbs. flour

2 tbs. butter

1 cups of milk
4 tps. grated Parmesan cheese
some dried parsley (optional)

How

1. Bring a big pot of water to a boil and salt it generously for cooking the spaghetti. Turn down the heat to simmering while getting the sauce ready.
2. First peel and clean the white shrimp. Pat it very dry, marinade it with a dash of salt and some oil then set aside.
3. Heat up a pan with 2 tbs. of cooking oil. Fry the dried baby shrimp on low heat until fragrant, no more than 2 minutes. Remove fried baby shrimp from the pan using a slotted spoon and place them on paper towel to drain the excess oil. Do not clean the pan.
4. In the same pan, turn the heat up to medium and fry the white shrimp in single layer. Brown both sides and until it is 70% cooked. Remove white shrimp from the pan and set aside.
5. In the same pan, turn the heat to very low. Add butter then flour. Whisk and cook for 3 minutes. Do not let it burn.
6. Slowly whisk milk into the flour butter mixture. Continue to whisk while cooking to break up all the lumps. Cook the cream sauce for 10 minutes then stir in Parmesan cheese.
   
7. Pick a time to start cooking the spaghetti so that you can transfer the cooked spaghetti directly into the sauce rather than letting the spaghetti to wait for the sauce to cook. Cook the pasta according to the recommended time on the package minus 1 minute.
8. Taste the fried baby shrimp. If it is very salty, do not season the sauce. If the sauce is too thick, add some pasta water. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning accordingly. Remember the pasta water is salty too so the sauce may not need any more salt.
9. As soon as the spaghetti is ready, drain then transfer it directly into the sauce. Add white shrimp and any of its juice into the spaghetti and mix well. Add more pasta water if it is too thick. Turn off the heat.
10. Assemble the spaghetti in a serving bowl, sprinkle fried baby shrimp, masago and some dried parsley on top. Serve immediately.

Without the white shrimp

Substitute white shrimp with a soft boiled egg