Another submission

Thanks to the time change, we have another dinner review from Robin. Her picture and comments are below. Wow, those crawfish look great! (they have crawfish in Germany?)



It so happened tonight was a good night to try this week's recipe, Linguine with Clams and Peas. I was really hesitant because it got a horrible review, but I thought it had potential so I did do a pretty major sub, added some veg and need to note one technique that I've learned from Italians when dealing with a light sauce like this one. So here goes:
1. I skipped the canned clams ... I've never had good success with it and it has an overpowering fishy-ness to it. So I subbed crawfish meat which, surprisingly,I could find in the refridgerated section of thegrocery store here.
2. I upped the veggie broth from 1 cup to 1.5 cups to make up for the lack of clam juice. And added a half a glass of wine (which is probably more like 4 oz) ...the other half went to the chef.
3. Veggie additions: I added a couple hand fulls of brocolli and a carrot, julienned into matchsticks and used fresh (not frozen) peas. Also, I threw a handful of green beans in with the pasta while it was cooking.
4. Techniques worth noting .... don't ever omit the salt (like the recipe says to do) when cooking pasta. You need the salt to flavor the pasta ... trust me on this one, there is a HUGE difference between salted and unsalted pasta. You need to take the pasta out of the boiling water a couple of minutes before it is al dente and toss it with the light broth, put a top on it and let it finish cooking in the broth. It will soak up the wonderful broth flavor and be fabulous.

So, overall I still feel like I kept with the "spirit of the recipe" especially since the original got a horrible rap. But, mine had more of a veggie taste than a seafood taste. Anyway, we both really loved it but I'm going to put it in my box of keepers,rewritten as follows:

Linguine with crawfish and spring vegetables
--------------------------------------
250 g. dry linguine
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, smashed
200 g. pkg. crawfish meat
1 1/2 cup organic vegetable broth (such as SwansonCertified Organic)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 cup fresh green peas (or frozen)
1 carrot, julienned into matchstick pieces
1 c. fresh brocolli florets
1 c. fresh green beans
1/2 cup (2 ounces) preshredded Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Preparation
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic to pan; sauté 1 minute. Add broth,wine, peas, brocolli, carrot and red pepper to pan;bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes,stirring occasionally until vegetables are tender. Add crawfish meat and heat through, 2 more minutes.Cook pasta according to package directions in salted water, adding green beans along with pasta to the cooking water. Take pasta out of cooking water 2 minutes before the suggested cooking time and toss with the broth and veggies. Cover pan and allow pastato finish cooking. It will soak up the broth and taste wonderful.Sprinkle with cheese and basil.