Shrimp & Scallop Scampi

If you're unfamiliar with scampi, you might be better off not knowing the ingredients used to get such a mouth-watering flavor. However, it's really quite obvious most of the time from just looking at it.

First Observation

- It's got herbs.

- The sauce is golden in color.

- Smells wonderful.

Now, if you can distinguish your scents better, you'd smell the tart lemon and perhaps the white wine. If you can really recognize the scent, you'd smell the wonderful aroma of butter.

Now, I'll tell you now, I used a whole stick of salted butter for this bad boy. A stick of butter is nothing though. You may worry but don't, just eat. Indulging once in a loooooong while is okay. And you're not drinking all of the sauce anyway. If you were, about 806 calories from fat just in the butter. So, don't drink the sauce.

I started with browning the butter in the pan on high before adding the seasonings. Fry minced garlic. Throw in oregano, parsley, basil, ground pepper. Mix well and then place the shrimp. For this one, I did scallops separately from the shrimp simply because my pan was too full and I wanted every piece flat for searing. We're searing here so as soon as the shrimp turns color on one side, flip it to the other. Added a little bit of lemon juice as it finished up. Then I took all of the shrimp out to do the scallops as well. You want to adjust the heat if your butter herb mix is turning brown really quickly. (Or you could add more butter but let's not.) Same as shrimp, sear both sides of the scallops.

After all of that is done, put the shrimp back in the pan, add more lemon juice to taste and pour a good amount of white wine to just about equal the amount of the lemon juice. Let it all simmer for a bit before plating. The key here is that you don't add the wine and lemon juice until your shrimp and scallops have been cooked first. Then you'll get the best aromas and tastes from the sauce without overwhelming flavor in your shrimp and scallops. Believe me, lemon juice and wine flavor is strong if you start with it. Also, you won't get a great sear if you add it all in the beginning.

I sprinkled parmesan cheese on top after plating. It doesn't really affect the flavor much but it's makes it a little lighter than just all that butter-garlic-lemon-white wine sauce. I always do scampi over linguine or vermicelli noodles. They are just the right thinness that I like with my sauce. Remember, don't overindulge on that sauce.