Saucy Shrimp

I had a jones for shrimp on Friday, so Saturday the Perfect Child and I headed out to Safe Harbor (the seafood purveyor of whom I have sung praises before...) to get some scrimps to cook up for dinner.
5 lbs of jumbo shrimp later, I was back at the Humble Abode and digging through the spice rack and dry storage to see what was available to work with...

I got out several cookbooks, including one from Uglesich's and made notes on several recipes and after a quick trip to Publix I set to work. At the risk of sounding full of myself, the results were famous amazing astounding beyond compare pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.

For your gastronomic pleasure, I present to you, lucky reader,

Saucy Shrimp...
(serves 4, or 2 if one of the 2 is an ogre)

Hardware:
10" saute pan
6-quart soup pot
Shallow bowls for serving

Ingredients:
1/2 small onion
2 celery ribs
5 garlic cloves
1/2 stick of butter
2T bacon grease.
(What? You don't save your old bacon grease after frying bacon on Saturday morning? For shame. Tsk tsk tsk. Use another 1/2 stick of butter.

2T rosemary
2t thyme
1T fennel
1T cumin
2t celery seed
2 tsp black pepper

1 Qt chicken broth
8 oz bottle clam juice
2T Crystal Hot Sauce or Texas Pete
Juice of 1 lemon
1 6oz can of tomato paste
1 bottle (12oz.) Red Stripe beer.

3 to 4 lbs of prepared* shrimp.

2 loaves Cuban bread or baguettes.
Optional: white rice

*A note on Shrimp.
There are 3 schools of thought on preparing and serving shrimp.

1. International Method
Buy whole head-on shrimp, cook & serve them intact, so their beady little eyes are watching you as you shell and eat them. Big in Europe and in Asia.

2. Lazy American Method
Buy headed shrimp, leaving tail shells intact, or just cutting the shell a bit to remove the sand vein, but leaving the bulk of the shell in place.
Some people will make the case that this method makes the shrimp more tender and keeps more of the flavoring of the cooking spices close to the meat of the shrimp.
I've tried it and I'm calling bullshit on this theory. When you peel them, the spices come off with the shell.

3. Uncle Jay's Method
Buy head-on jumbo shrimp. (They are bigger, fresher and cheaper than their prepared counterparts.)
Head, peel and de-vein shrimp while listening to Jimmy Buffett's "A1A" album.
Before the last strains of "Nautical Wheelers" are heard, you will be finished with 3 or 4 lbs of shrimp.
I peel them completely for 2 reasons... 1) because I don't overcook them, and 2) that way my dinner guests can concentrate on enjoying the food, rather than peeling their meals and dealing with shrimp shells and legs, and messy hands...

Do it however works for you...

Ready?... Here we go.

Slice and dice the onion and celery, peel and mince the garlic.

Melt the butter and bacon grease in the saute pan, and fry the onion, celery and garlic until soft. Don't brown the ingredients...just fry until soft and translucent.
(Hey! No salt yet! That's later.)

While the veggies are frying, it's time to work with the spices.
You can use fresh or dried spices, depending on what you have on-hand in your larder.
I had no fresh spices...not even a sprig of rosemary...so all mine were out of rack...
If you have fresh, so much the better for you.
If your using fresh you want to do a little cut and crush to release the oils in the herbs. For any dry spices you are using, you'll want to chop/crush them, or take them for a spin in a spice grinder, if you use one of those things.
I have a mortar and pestle for just such an occasion. Heh.
So.. Have at it... cut, crush, chop and/or grind away...

Once you have prepared your spices, and your veggies are nice and soft, reduce the heat under the saute pan and add your spices. Stir to combine. Cover the pan and head to the next step.

Get all your liquids ready to use, open all containers and bottles. Put your soup pot on the stove.
Set your burner to med-high heat and transfer the veggies from the saute pan to the 6-quart pot. Add the chicken stock, the clam juice, Red Stripe beer, hot sauce, lemon juice, and the tomato paste. Bring to a boil, the reduce heat to just above a simmer (slow boil) for 1 hour, uncovered.

After 1 hour, test for flavor and texture. Now will be the time to add salt, more garlic or garlic powder, or any other spices you like.

(Nota Bene: You will notice there is no mention of cooking shrimp up to this point. Just want to make that clear.)

Serving / Presentation.

I really hate it when some people make a shrimp dish and insist on cooking the crap out of the shrimp, making them hard, bad-tasting shrimp nuggets.
If you drop your shrimp in a pot of, say, file gumbo, and boil it for 20 or 30 minutes, the shrimp will cease to taste like shrimp and will taste like, well, not good.
Shrimp only need a few minutes of cooking to make them tasty and flavorful and wonderful.
For this particular recipe, do it my way... It's a lot of work, but worth it.

Heat your saute pan over med-hi to hi heat.
Using a soup ladle, put 2 ladles of the broth in your hot saute pan. As soon as it starts to bubble (almost immediately) add a handful (8-10) of raw, peeled, de-veined shrimp.
Let them cook for 30 seconds, then turn them over and let them cook for another 30 or so seconds...
Give them a swirl or two, and maybe pan-flip them a time or two if your are able to do that kind of thing without slpattering the entire stove with sauce. The shrimp should be over the heat for 90 seconds to 2 minutes tops. They will continue to cook in the sauce for a minute or two more after plating, and will be completely and perfectly cooked if you follow the directions correctly.

Transfer the shrimp and pan sauce to a shallow bowl and serve with crusty bread for sopping up the sauce to one of your lucky dinner guests.
Repeat for each guest.
Cook only as needed to serve each guest. Be prepared to saute more sauce and shrimp as needed for seconds and thirds.

As an alternative, serve over rice.
Have some Texas Pete or Crystal hot sauce on the table for individual taste.

Addendum:
Leftover sauce: Put it in a jar- keeps in the fridge for 2 weeks.

For saucy crawfish - Use a bigger pot, add another beer and another quart of stock, 2 T of cayenne, 2T of
hot sauce, and 1t of black peppercorns.After broth simmers for 1 hour, increase heat to low boil, add 4 lbs whole crawfish to the full pot of broth.
After 20 minutes, ladle sauce & crawfish into bowls and serve. Have lots of bread on hand for sopping up sauce.

Enjoy.


TBG out-