White Sauce Shrimp-Spinach Lasagne

Submitted by Bone Man

"Well, it's "lasagne" made with linguine *.* It's also sort of a pain to make as it requires some multi-tasking, several steps, but if one follows the instructions it's fairly easy to prepare. In any case, it's delicious enough to be well-worth the effort. I developed this recipe mainly as an elegant entree for dinner parties but it also doubles nicely as a high-end covered dish. Enjoy!"

 

• Ready In: 1hr 5mins
• Ingredients: 22
• Yields: 1 casserole
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 8 ounces spinach linguine, cooked au dente
• 8 ounces linguine, cooked au dente
• 3 tablespoons salted butter
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, and de-tailed
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 medium sweet onion, roughly chopped
• 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, trimmed and roughly chopped
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 2⁄3 cups whole milk, pre-warmed to 100-degrees F
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1⁄2 tablespoon white pepper
• 24 ounces cottage cheese, small curd
• 16 ounces monterey jack cheese, shredded
• 4 ounces asiago cheese, grated
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 4 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and chopped
• 1 large jalapeno pepper, de-seeded and minced
• 1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
• cooking spray

directions

1. Have the cooked pasta ready for use. Pre-heat the oven to 375-degrees F.
2. In a large no-stick skillet, over medium heat, melt the butter and add in the olive oil along with the chopped garlic. Pour about 2/3 of this blend into a bowl and set aside. Continuing to carefully stir over the medium heat, add in the onion, mushrooms and minced jalapeno and allow the mix to tenderize, (about 6 minutes).
3. Remove the vegetable blend from the skillet, re-add the reserved melted butter blend and add in the shrimp. Sprinkle the Old Bay seasoning over the shrimp. Sautee over medium heat for 6 minutes, stirring ocassionally. Remove the shrimp from the pan and set aside. (You can discard the butter blend or save it for use in another dish).
4. Set up a double boiler with 3 cups of water in the bottom section over high heat. In the top (dry) section, melt the 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter and add in the pre-warmed milk. As it begins to yield a little steam, whisk in the white pepper and the minced garlic. When it comes to a boil, whisk in the flour and continue to whisk until the sauce thickens. Allow the blend to continue at a low boil (adjust temperature if necessary), whisking with great frequency, for 15 minutes. If it gets too thick, add more pre-warmed milk, 1/4 cup at a time until desired consistency is achieved. (You want it about as thick as pancake batter.) At the end of the 15 minutes, remove from heat and set aside.
5. Spray a 9" x 13", or larger, casserole dish with the cooking spray. Lay in 1/3 of the white sauce and make sure that most of the bottom is covered. Then, lay in just a little more than half of the pasta, (about 60%). Cover the pasta with all the cottage cheese. Next, spread the spinach all over the top.
6. Layer the remaining pasta evenly across the top. Next, evenly distribute the remaining white sauce all over the pasta. Lay the cooked shrimp evenly across the white sauce and then distribute the onion-mushroom-jalapeno mix across the dish. Top this with all the Monterey Jack Cheese and the Asiago chees, and then finish by sprinkling the dried parsley across the top, just as a sort of garnish.
7. In the oven, pre-heated to 375-degrees F., place the dish on the middle rack, uncovered, and bake for 30 minutes. At the end of the 30 minutes, change the setting to BROIL, move the rack up to one below the top one, and broil the dish just until there is some light browning across the top (about 2-3 minutes). WATCH THIS CAREFULLY as it will burn quickly! Remove from oven when the top is lightly browned.
8. Allow the dish to "rest" for about 10 minutes prior to cutting into serving sizes. Serve with hot, fresh garlic bread, buttered Parker House Rolls, or with Texas Toast.

Reviews

[jilkat25]

This is a really great recipe! It is very pretty and "tightens up" nicely so that is does have the consistency of a lasagna, not soupy or gloopy. I found it needed a little more than 30 minutes for baking before browning the top, closer to 50 minutes, but my oven is quirky that way. I liked the comment that the white sauce should be like pancake batter. I didn't make the sauce in a double boiler, just used Wondra flour and a little butter in a skillet to make an ordinary cream sauce, and didn't really measure the milk, but the result was fine. I let the cottage cheese drain before using it and used large curd because that's what I had on hand. Also used a Monterey Jack/Asiago blend (Mexican with no spices) for the same reason, and used about 2 lbs of shrimp, just because that's how much I had peeled. This would be good as a side dish without any shrimp or meat, but I might also try it with cooked chicken or some other leftover meat like pork roast. It would be nice (and expensive) with lump crabmeat or even chunk "krab"/surimi (which we like) instead, sometime. The jalapeno added something unexpected and good! Really yummy! Thanks!