Recipe: Pappadeaux's Pasta Mardi Gras (copycat recipe)

Pasta Mardi -- menu description
Source: Pappadeaux

Gras Linguine tossed with crawfish, andouille sausage & crimini mushrooms in a marinara cream sauce topped with jumbo grilled shrimp.

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AN ATTEMPT TO CLONE PAPPADEAUX'S PASTA MARDI GRAS

Andouille sausage
shrimp, peeled and deveined, about 1 lb. (a bit less would work as well.)
linguini
Vodka sauce (I just buy Bertolli's at the store - it's cheap and good enough. You can spend 5 times as much, easily, but I doubt it's worth it.)
Bell peppers, finely diced. I used 2 (too many)
Roma tomatoes, finely diced. I used 4 (too many)
an onion, small to medium, finely diced. (probably too much)
minced garlic
Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning
butter or margarine
Mushrooms, sliced

In a large skillet, heat a bit of butter. Slice the sausages diagonally, at about a 30 degree angle to make long oval slices. Put these in the pan and fry them up for a bit. Use low heat, and go slow, this isn't a stir-fry dish. Some of the fat will melt and stay in the pan. Take the fried sausages out, and set aside. Now cook the shrimp in the pan, on low heat. Don't overcook them, but they should be made opaque, and pinkish white. Remove the shrimp from the pan and set aside.

Increase the heat a little bit, let the pan heat up a bit, and throw in the minced garlic, and stir around a bit, then throw in the onions (finely diced) and cook those for a bit. Then throw in the tomatoes (finely diced) bell peppers (finely diced), and mushrooms (sliced). Put in the vodka sauce and sprinkle some Tony Chachere's on. I make one pass over the pan with the shaker, then add a bit more, and that's about right. It's a bit salty, so you kind of have to experiment to find out how much you like, I have overdone it a time or two in the past. and stir it up. Lower heat, cover, and let simmer for a while. You need to cook the bell peppers a bit, which takes the longest of these ingredients. Around this time, you want to be starting the linguine - though better late with the linguine than early, as the sauce can sit around better than the linguine can. You might also want to think about starting any garlic bread you might have in mind about 15 or 20 minutes before things are done.

To serve, put some pasta on a plate, then some of the sauce, then some of the shrimp and sausages, then maybe a bit more sauce on top of the shrimp and sausages.

It's a very rich dish, and filling. I wasn't able to eat all of the giant plateful in the picture above.

So, how does it compare to Pappadeaux's Pasta Mardi Gras? Well, I left out one ingrediant, crawfish meat, which would have been good, and I used too many vegetables (not too many kinds, I don't think but too much of each kind.)

Source: scaryreasoner / wordpress/ November 16, 2007