Imagine a one-pot shrimp pasta dish: a cross between a garlicky scampi and a zippy, lemony piccata, with a little bit of creamy sauce tossed in for good measure.
That’s what we envisioned when we started work on this recipe. We wanted tender, succulent shrimp and lots of rich, silky sauce balanced with just enough vibrant lemon and briny capers. The sauce needed to be fully flavored with garlic and white wine, but it also needed to support (not upstage) the star of the show: the shrimp.
We also wanted the recipe to work with everything from freshly caught shrimp to the frozen-aisle stuff. If you’re careful to buy the right thing, you can find excellent flash-frozen shrimp in many grocery stores. Look for individually quick frozen (IQF) shell-on shrimp that are wild caught in U.S. waters. They should be untreated, meaning the only ingredient listed on the package should be shrimp (not salt or additives such as sodium tripolyphosphate)….