21 Days (pt2) Wickedly Delicious Shrimp & Pancetta Pomodoro

"I got in 10# or so of pancetta for you to play with. Have fun!"
Hhhmmmmm...

4# of cubed & rendered pancetta later I'm wondering what to do with a quart of Bacon Bits Deluxe and and the reserved fat. I LOVE a quick fresh tomato basil sauce with extra virgin olive oil and the rendered pancetta fat seemed an excellent substitute for the EVOO, but I kinda wanted to take it to the next level. The fat was still good and hot but cooling...

"You've got 20# of shrimp just came in, too..."

Then this happened:

Yup, that's a baker's dozen worth of sliced lemons infusing the pancetta fat for an hour or so in a nice warm spot on the back of the stove. In the meantime, I very roughly pulsed 2 quarts of grape tomatoes in a food processor, did a fine chiffonade of fresh basil, and gathered up some fresh chopped garlic, salt & pepper. I ran the lemonfat through colander, gently pressing on the lemon pulp to harvest as much flavor as possible and in doing so released a heady and intoxicating aroma that had me momentarily woozy not unlike catching the vapor from booze deglazing a saute' pan. 

With all my mise en place, I grabbed a couple of good saute pans and a squeeze bottle of Annointing Oil to supplement the fat and cranked up the fire on the stove top. Were I serving this by the plate I would make the sauce in the pan with the shrimp as needed, but this was for a quick-fire buffet so I started by splitting the 3c of infused fat between the pans and adding about a 1/4c of oil to each bringing it all to just the edge of smokepoint. Once good and hot I kill the fire for just long enough to add 1 quart of the cherry tomatoes to each pan and toss them several times to coat everything well. The heat and rolling sizzle will emulsify the oil and tomatoes. Then I turned the flames back on, medium heat, and added 3tbls of crushed garlic to each pan as well as splitting the cooked pancetta between them. 

I reduced the flames to low and let this simmer briefly, to stew the garlic and pancetta a bit and end up with: 

In this case, I finished everything by tossing together roasted shrimp, basil chiffonade, and this sauce with just a bit of salt & pepper. 

5 Star Sacrilicious Rating