Shrimp Scampi

After searching for years, I have never been able to find a really good shrimp scampi recipe on the internet. All I have found are very lemony recipes or ones with not enough sauce. Some don't even include pasta! Wtf!? Scampi and no pasta? I am insulted. Here is my recipe that I have synthesized out of several known recipes, with my own little touches.


Ingredients:
1/4 pound shrimp per person (cooked, peeled, de-tailed)
1 cup olive oil
2 cups butter (this is beginning to sound like Italian Fried Chicken!!
8 cloves garlic
2 mini sweet peppers (various colors!), julienned
1/2 cup white onion
a dash of white wine
a dash of pepper
a dash of coarse salt
a dash of lemon juice
1/4 package capellini pasta per person

Make sure your shrimp are thawed and ready to be re-cooked. I use the easiest, the cheapest, though not necessarily the tastiest shrimp available on the west coast: a bag of precooked, frozen, tailless, small shrimp. They work really well and tend not to be fishy. On the east coast, shrimp is cheaper than chicken sometimes, so if you live there, go for it!

Heat the olive oil in a standard skillet on medium to medium-high heat. Once it's fairly warm, add about half the onions. The onions should be sliced, like you would for a burger, then cut in half. Let them simmer while you press all the garlic cloves into the olive oil.

Here you should start boiling your water for the pasta.

Next, melt the butter in the skillet. Once it has melted, add the mini sweet peppers and the lemon juice. Stir all this junk up, then add your shrimp.

At this point, it's mostly an estimating game. I'd suggest at first you cook over medium-high heat, then when the mixture gets super bubbly, lower it to medium. At that point, add the pepper, salt, and white wine. Cook the shrimp until they're warm, which should not be more than about 2 minutes at this point.

Boil the capellini, strain, and so forth.

To serve, there are two options. For the first, you could place an appropriate amount of the pasta in a bowl, then pour the scampi mixture over it. The second idea is to combine everything in a big bowl and stir it. Either way, it's good. You'll find yourself eating more pasta if you use the second method. Which is good cause sometimes capellini is difficult to eat on its own.

This recipe is ALWAYS yummy. It's one of those estimation recipes that turn out really good no matter which ingredient you emphasize. If you like a really winey sauce, add a lot of wine. If you like the lemon, add more lemon, and if you like butter (heh, that's me), focus on adding less of the other ingredients.