Pasta salad for Sundays

Loaded with shrimp, corn, radishes, and pickles and showered with herbs

Hello and welcome to today’s Stories from Catbird Cottage! This wasn’t the post I’ve had lined up to share. There is a mushroom recipe trio that was this close to getting published when I had to pivot to other tasks, and then the moment/weather wasn’t, well, perfect for that very thing when I returned. It happens. So, while the weather is fine - and the produce so abundant - here’s something you can literally throw together in minutes. I did, and it saved the day.

Today’s recipe for shrimp + corn pasta salad is for all subscribers! That said, I’d be grateful if you’d join and upgrade to paid. As a supporter you’ll receive a bonus newsletter once (and sometimes more!) each month that delves deeper into my process, with additional behind the scenes and more zesty recipes. Your support directly helps me to consistently create meaningful content, and I very much appreciate it. To make the upgrade even more tempting, I’ve created a summertime special offer of 20% off for everyone who subscribes for a year. Thank you for being here.

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Here in Accord I'm three weeks into a project I named Picnic Concierge. The thought was: why not share my small batch preserving-the-bounty staples, myriad harvested wild ingredients, and other perfect-for-a-picnic dishes I make through the season, all packaged together for anyone in the region who wants a special picnic or get-together? With weekly pickups at the local Accord Market, it’s become another way to share my view of what eating can be, and it has been a blast.

Featured items have included wild berry + peach galettes, tomato confit, wild mushroom + potato gf frittata, homemade focaccia, honeysuckle (and then milkweed) cordial, and a bevy of other treats. There are many gushing recipients, and that makes me happy! One of the exciting things I’ve realized is, devising new, unique and delicious offerings that can pack up easily, and be eaten immediately is a fun way to problem solve. And when all the pieces come together, it feels particularly joyful.

This pasta salad is one of the new recipes debuting for Picnic Concierge this week. I thought, why not make it for us for dinner while I developed the recipe, taking care of two tasks at once… After a day of stacking the first half of a cord of wood into our storage frames (for the bitter days of winter), this bright and juicy pasta salad did just the trick.

I would say the recipe serves 3 (or 4, with a side salad), but us two hungry folks inhaled it and there wasn’t a morsel left. During summertime, I have a thing about not doing high heat cooking on the stovetop if I can avoid it. Truth be told, when I bake galettes and batches of focaccia, a roaring oven is going for hours… and…. that’s plenty. So here, poaching the shrimp makes perfect sense. And it only takes 3ish minutes.

I always make a stock from shrimp shells and a few aromatics, and then freeze it once it’s strained and cooled. The resulting liquid is bright, slightly sweet, and a treat that I use in making risottos and rice, poaching seafood, and here, it is also the means to cook the pasta. It was just enough liquid to cook the noodles. Bonus, they soak up that flavorsome liquid… I like to think it makes the dish a bit even more dynamic, and it also honors “using a thing up”. Win-win. If you don’t have time to make a stock, using water with a few aromatics such as a bay leaf, a few lemon slices, peppercorns, and a little salt will work in a pinch.

The premise is very straightforward: combine a bunch of crunchy veg with a lush (but not too heavy), zingy sauce. Add some protein and a pasta of your choice. You could swap any of the veg for whatever’s in your fridge - though I do recommend including a pickle element of some kind. The ribbed tubular shape of pipe rigate was perfect for clinging the sauce, and the right size to enjoy the perfect bite with all the other elements. I only used eight shrimp and cut them lengthwise to stretch them further. It was a good move!

If reading this has gotten you craving pasta salads, there’s this one and this too, both perfect for right now.

Shrimp + corn pasta salad

sauce
3 tbsp mayonnaise 
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp prepared horseradish
1 tbsp evoo
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper 

salad assembly
8 U-20 shrimp, peeled and deveined and sliced in half lengthwise
1 ear sweet corn, kernels cut from the cob
1 dill pickle thinly sliced on a mandoline (about 1/2 cup)
3 radishes thinly sliced on a mandoline, larger ones halved (just line up the pile after slicing and make a single cut)
1 small stalk celery, thinly sliced, plus the leaves if they’re in good shape
2 tbsp very thinly sliced red onion
1/4 Fresno or jalapeño pepper, thinly sliced
4 oz pipe rigate pasta
2 cups poaching liquid
1 tbsp each chopped parsley and snipped chives, to garnish

Combine the celery, radishes, pickles, red onion, and chili pepper in a mixing bowl.

In another bowl, stir together the sauce ingredients until uniform. It will be punchy and bright - once tossed in with all the ingredients is where its true character will show.

Warm the poaching liquid over high heat in a saucepan until just boiling, then add the shrimp. Stir them a few times over the course of a couple minutes. Once they turn just-opaque, transfer them to a small bowl.

Bring the poaching liquid once again to a boil and add the pasta. Cook according to package instructions for al dente, stirring occasionally to prevent them from sticking. Transfer the cooked pasta to another bowl with a slotted spoon.

Add the pasta to the veg and toss together, followed by the shrimp. Toss it all with the sauce. Add the corn at the end - I like to keep the cut rows of kernels intact for beauty, and extra juiciness - and fold them in. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Transfer the pasta salad to plates, shower with parsley and chives, and see if you don’t eat it all in one sitting.

As always, I love hearing how you love it - and what swaps you make - in the comments! Enjoy these last blissful days of summer.

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