“Crustacean Nation I”

Ah, shrimp: the seafood hater’s seafood of choice!  I’ve mentioned before I live in Kansas, where cattle is king.  I’ve got several friends who turn up their nose at fish, and think nothing of scarfing down fried or grilled shrimp.  I’ll eat just about any presentation of shrimp, but I have a fondness for Alton’s application this time around – shrimp cocktail.  It’s unfortunate that most places don’t do a good shrimp cocktail – and the places that serve it usually don’t do it well.  So  I was pleased to go after this iconic American appetizer.

My first goal was to make the cocktail sauce.  I enjoy a good, strong sauce, and that means cutting the tomato liberally with horseradish.  Alton’s recipe called for a single 14-oz can of diced tomatoes drained of their liquid, a half cup of prepared chili sauce, and a full quarter cup of horseradish.  Even I was a bit taken aback at that.  Given the problems I’d had recently with everything, I decided to cut back on the horseradish when I made the sauce, and would give the sauce a few days for the flavor to develop.  If it needed more, I could always add more before service.  Those three ingredients plus a bit of sugar, salt and black pepper went into a food processor and pureed until smooth.  Into the refrigerator it all went to stew.

Sourcing the shrimp was slightly difficult.  Alton’s recipe required 21-25 count shrimp, and pretty much everywhere I went had either larger or smaller sized shrimp, both frozen and “fresh.”  (I use quotation marks because, really, everything that’s brought out this far from the coast is frozen.  It’s just thawed before it’s presented to us at the counter.)  As luck would have it though, one of my local markets actually had 21-25s; more incredibly, they had them on sale at $4/pound less than normal!

I rushed back to my home, and set to work deveining with a pair of kitchen shears.  It’s a gross process, but then, removing an intestinal track from any creature is bound to be a bit disgusting.  Strangely, some of them didn’t have veins.  I’m hoping that meant that they were removed from the shrimp before I got to them, and not that I missed them.  Not that it matters, really, the veins are safe to eat, just a bit gritty and gross.

After deveining came a quick 25 minute brine in a salt/sugar solution.  They were the patted as dry as possible, then tossed with olive oil and a bit of Old Bay.  Under the broiler they went for a mere two minutes, flipped, and returned for another minute.  After three minutes beneath the heat, they were thrown back into a bowl, and put into the freezer to stop the cooking.  Fifteen minutes later, they were just cool enough to handle and eat.

So, how were they?  I enjoyed them.  And the sauce?  Turned out it needed a bit more horseradish before everyone enjoyed it.  How did everyone like them?  Well, one of my guests is a recent ex-Bostonian.  If anyone knows seafood, it’s her.  When she couldn’t stop eating them, I knew Alton & I had done well.

Next Time: A fungus is among us.

Shrimp Cocktail

“Apple Family Values”

This week’s theme: snatching Defeat from the jaws of Victory.

I don’t cook with apples much.  Mostly, when I think of eating apples, I think of picking up the fruit and noshing on it until naught but a core remains.  That’s probably how I’ve eaten 95% of the apples I’ve consumed in my life.  Apple pie’s OK, but I always preferred the tartness of cherry.  Apple cider’s tasty, but I only really get a hankering for that when the air turns crisp and the leaves decide that green is out of fashion.  And applesauce – well, if there’s one food I’ve never really had an appreciation for, it’s that.  Growing up, my father enjoyed eating his pork chops with a few large spoonfuls of store-bought applesauce.  I tried it, of course, and while I agree that the sweetness of the apples and the savoriness of the pork play very well together, I could never make it past the bland texture that store-bought applesauce has.  It’s baby food.  If you put a spoon of it in your mouth and chewed for five minutes straight, it would have the same consistency than if you pulled it straight from the jar.

So, going into this chapter, I’m not a big fan of either application, but when life gives you apples, you make applesauce.  And Waldorf salad, apparently.

Starting there, I should mention I’ve never actually had a Waldorf salad previous to the one I made.  It’s very simple to make, really – cube up some apples, toss with some apple cider vinegar to make sure the apples don’t brown prematurely, and toss with mayo.  Add onion, walnuts, mint, golden raisins, celery, and curry powder, and mix to combine.  Let it refrigerate for all the flavors to mingle.  This being my first Waldorf, I have to say: that’s a darn good salad.  The sweetness of the apples play well with the savory elements, much the same way they play with the savoriness of pork.  The only complaint goes back to the curry powder.  I think the bottle I bought had a lot of turmeric, because my salad went yellow.  And I mean yellow.  Like mustard yellow.  Like the party I brought it to people thought it was German potato salad yellow.  Like a friend wouldn’t eat it because it looked like it came from a baby’s bottom yellow.  Still, if you got past the unpleasant jaundiced pallor, it was a tasty salad.

Then, the applesauce.  It’s a very easy recipe again – peel apples, core them and quarter them.  Stick them in a microwavable container with some apple cider, honey, Cognac, butter and cinnamon.  Microwave on high for ten minutes, then mash.  I think my container was not optimal, since it didn’t keep all six apples submerged during cooking.  As a result, they weren’t quite done all the way, and mashing was like mashing undercooked potatoes.  Still, it was tasty, even if the applesauce was chunkier than I would have liked.  I took this over to the parent’s house on Christmas Eve, and had it with some pork they had roasted the night before – needless to say, it was much better than store-bought.  Even my father agreed.

Next time: a cocktail that won’t cause problems at a sobriety checkpoint.

Recipes:

The Waldorf Hysteria

10-Minute Applesauce