Roasted Shrimp and Broccoli With Soba Noodles

August 20, 2012 Ceri

Hey Y’all! How was y’all’s weekend? Sorry, I’m finally finished the summer-long Friday Night Lights bender Ben and I have been on and I couldn’t help but pick up some Texas-isms along the way. I’m in withdrawal from the characters but I’ll try to keep the Texas Forevers to a minimum. And get back to dinner. I’ve been meaning to do this post for a long time now. I first came across Melissa Clark’s recipe for roasted broccoli and shrimp via the Wednesday Chef blog (one of my favourites). It’s a popular recipe – google it and you’ll see how many food bloggers have paid homage to it. It’s an easy, crazy-delicious dinner with Middle Eastern flavours of cumin and lemon. But as much as Ben and I liked it, the kids did not, so I decided to take it in a slightly different direction.

If you’ve never roasted broccoli, you really must. You can roast them after tossing them in a bit of olive oil and serve them with grated Parmesan, or do as Laura and Scarlett do and serve it with wholewheat penne and some ricotta cheese stirred in. Or you can make this simple, light dinner that comes together in about 20 minutes. People on our Facebook page have been asking us for more quick, weeknight dinners and this is a really great one. I’m going to try the cumin route again eventually but for now my kids really go for this lemon-y, kind of Asian flavours of this speedy dinner.

photos by Sidra Syed

Roasted Shrimp and Broccoli With Soba Noodles

Ingredients

1 x 8 oz package of soba noodles
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 head of broccoli, trimmed into small florets
4 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Get a big pot of water on to boil.

If you bought your shrimp at a fish market you'll have to peel and devein them.

Once they're peeled, just run a sharp paring knife down the back of the shrimp - just a very shallow cut - so you can use the tip of your knife to lift out the line of black guck in there.

You could always buy shrimp that have been peeled and deveined for you and I always have some of those in my freezer.

In a small bowl, mix together your oils, vinegar, lemon juice and bit of salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, toss together your broccoli and half of that marinade.

Now spread it out evenly across two baking sheets and pop it in a hot oven for 10 minutes

In that same bowl you marinated the broccoli in, toss your shrimp and the other half of the marinade together.

When the broccoli has been in the oven for 10 minutes, take out the sheets, turn the broccoli over and add the shrimp evenly across the two sheets.

Put it all back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

By now your water is boiling.

Cook your soba noodles according to package instructions

In the final 2 or 3 minutes, take the baking sheets out and give everything another turn over.

In the end the broccoli should be firm but tender and all the shrimp should be opaque and pink.

Drain the soba and noodles and turn them out onto a big platter.