The trouble is that in the summertime, a lot of familiar pasta dishes are just too heavy and too time-consuming to make. Who wants to stand in the kitchen over a steaming pot of sauce when it’s 90 degrees out? Sweating in the kitchen? Ew. And who wants to eat plates of oily mozzarella and full-fat ricotta during bikini season? Not me, and probably not you either. Still, there are tons of Italian dishes that are perfect for summer – Italy is, after all, a Mediterranean country with a subtropical climate – and many of them are delightfully different than the Italian-American dishes we’re used to eating.
I adapted the following recipe from the wonderful Rome at Home by Suzanne Dunaway. Incidentally, if you’re like me and like to read through cookbooks as if they were novels, this is an excellent one to pick up as her introductions are filled with useful information and interesting anecdotes about both the ingredients and her life in Rome – sort of an Under the Tuscan Sun in reverse proportion of story to recipe. The original dish is called Fettuccine al Limone – long pasta in a lemon cream sauce. I wanted to make something that would stand on its own as a main course, so I decided to tweak it a little bit by adding sea scallops and peas, both of which are naturally sweet and as such work well with the tartness of lemon.
I used whole-grain spaghetti in my version, which isn’t traditional but of course provides lots of extra fiber and is a healthier choice. You could use regular pasta or fresh – Dunaway provides instructions to make it from scratch in her book but I have not as of yet gotten so ambitious. You could also use bay scallops and stir them into the pasta rather than serve them atop. Don’t be scared off by the amount of cream in the recipe. Yes, it’s fattening, but because the sauce is rich you won’t feel the need to eat mounds and mounds of this, and let’s face it, it’s still going to be a lot less fattening than anything you’d order at an Italian restaurant.
Spaghetti al Limone with Sea Scallops and Sweet Peas
12 ounces spaghetti or other long pasta
2 tablespoons butter, separated
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flake
½ teaspoon garlic, minced
2 cups heavy cream
Zest and pulp from 2 lemons, plus juice from 1 additional lemon
16 sea scallops
2 cups frozen sweet peas, thawed
¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese, plus additional for table
Freshly ground black pepper and chopped fresh parley (optional, for garnish)
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta to al dente according to package directions.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat until bubbling. Add crushed red pepper flake and garlic; cook, stirring regularly, until garlic is golden and fragrant. Add cream and bring to a simmer before stirring in the lemon zest and pulp, breaking up any large bits of pulp with a wooden spoon or spatula. Let the sauce continue to simmer and reduce for 4 to 5 minutes.
In a separate skillet, melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Cook the scallops for 4 minutes per side or until they are cooked through. Remove from pan and set aside, keeping warm, until pasta and sauce are ready.
Add lemon juice, grated Pecorino Romano cheese, and thawed frozen peas to pan with cream; heat, stirring occasionally, until peas have warmed through. Add drained cooked pasta to pan and toss to coat, making sure that the peas are well-distributed. Divide among 4 pasta bowls or large plates and arrange 4 sea scallops atop each. Garnish with fresh pepper and chopped parsley, if desired, and enjoy with additional Pecorino Romano to taste.
Serves 4
If at all possible, enjoy this outdoors with a glass of wine. It actually improves once it cools off a bit. The combination of textures – chewy pasta, tender scallops just caramelized on the outsides, peas that still have some snap to them – combined with the flavor contrast of tart versus subtly sweet versus rich and creamy is really pleasing to the palate. A crisp green salad would make a good accompaniment, with fresh fruit or plain dark chocolate (or both!) for dessert.
Finally, do yourself a favor and do the prep work first – if you leave the lemon zesting until the moment that the lemon zest needs to go into the pan, you’re not going to be a happy camper when you find yourself chasing slivers of peel around the counter!
