Shrimp and Scallops in a Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

A few days ago, we were discussing a desire to eat some of the shrimp we had in the freezer and I remembered the recently published recipe for this dish that I had saved form Chef Dennis on his Ask Chef Dennis blog.  The red pepper sauce seemed like a very different way to serve seafood and Bev gave me a “I’m not sure about this” look but I wanted to give it a try as his recipes have always been good.  

I generally followed the ingredients list but increased everything for the 36 oz of peppers I had to insure enough for five servings.  You can click on the above link to check Dennis' site for the original recipe and several suggestions.

Roasted Pepper Sauce – Adapted from Ask Chef Dennis

Ingredients:

36 oz roasted red peppers pureed

1¼ cup heavy cream

5/8 cup grated Romano cheese

5 oz liquid from reconstituting sun-dried tomatoes (tomatoes should soak at least one hour)

2½ oz liquid from pepperoncini jar

2½ oz brandy or bourbon

1 tbsp sugar (Larry didn’t use)

Instructions:

Puree the roasted red peppers until they are as smooth as possible (Larry used an immersion blender with the peppers and cream in the sauce pan). Heat over medium-high heat.

Add the remainder of the ingredients and bring to a slow boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and allow to continue cooking for 1 hour.

*making the sauce a day ahead of time will enhance the flavor. You can make the pepper sauce up to 3 days ahead of time. This sauce also freezes well.

Shrimp & Scallops with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce - Adapted From Ask Chef Dennis

I cooked everything in the kitchen except the final assembly process.  Since I had different folks desiring different things in their meals, I decided to cook each plate to order (like a restaurant) beginning with Pat who requested marinara rather than red pepper sauce and no artichokes.  This is the assembly set up where I added water to jelly roll pans with racks to serve as steam pans then turned on one grill burner and kept the lid closed.

Ingredients: five servings

1¼ lb. shrimp 16-20 count

1¼ lb. sea scallops large

16 oz. mushrooms sliced

4 oz. sun-dried tomato reconstituted, reserve the liquid

10 pepperoncini (Larry had cherry peppers on hand but no pepperoncini’s)

20 mini artichoke hearts

5 cups roasted pepper sauce

¼ teaspoon black pepper

1 lb pasta your choice (Larry used angel hair)

Instructions:

Saute the mushrooms until the liquid is released and add them to the red pepper sauce.

Cook your pasta per box instructions, drain and keep warm in a covered pan.

Saute the scallops in oil and butter until nicely browned on both sides and keep warm in a 125F toaster oven.

Saute the shrimp in the same pan and keep warm in the oven.

Slice the rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes and add to a bowl then add the artichoke hearts and peppers to their own bowls.  Nuke them all to get warm.

Move everything to the grill.

For the typical dish, I added the following to a hot skillet: ½ cup sauce, 3 scallops, three shrimp, 4 artichoke hearts, some sundried tomatoes, 2 peppers, and the amount of pasta chosen by the diner.  While then diner was coming over to select their pasta amount, I already had the other ingredients heating in the pan.

Cook it for a couple of minutes, stirring and tossing until everything is hot and serve in a bowl.

Top with fresh grated parmesan, add a slice of Bev’s homemade garlic bread and serve (this was Bev’s role).

The Verdict:

Everyone thought it was delicious and a nice alternative to tomato sauce, although Bev said she prefers marinara, and I would definitely make it again as I really like roasted red pepper sauce, soup, etc.  If you like roasted red pepper sauce, you should give this one a try.  I enjoyed cooking the plates to order and I was able to turn one out every few minutes so not too long of a wait.

All we had left was a serving of pasta and just enough sauce to barely coat it.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

9/16/20 meal date