Jalapeño bucatini with rock shrimp
At Decade, which opened last month in the Butchertown neighborhood of Louisville, Ky., co-executive chefs Andy Myers and Matt Johnson makes bucatini pasta using the juice of seeded jalapeño peppers, which they say gives it an “intense vegetal flavor” and makes your lips tingle even though it’s not spicy.
As the pasta cooks they make the sauce by gently cooking garlic slices in olive oil until the edges start to brown, then adding jalapeño whey made by adding jalapeño juice to the whey leftover from making ricotta cheese. They add the cooked pasta to that and finish it with butter and grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
Once the sauce comes together they add rock shrimp, cook them for about a minute, finish with chives and lemon juice, and then top it with a salad made of shaved seedless jalapeños, celery leaf, shaved celery, and parsley dressed in olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.
Finally it’s garnished with squid ink breadcrumbs made by soaking leftover focaccia in squid ink mixed with water, toasting it and then processing it into “black, briny breadcrumbs.”
Price: $26