207. Shrimp and Corn with Basil (p. 322)

There are some meals that you remember for your whole life. (Dinners at Morimoto, Prune and the White Barn Inn come to mind.) And then there are the meals that, while perfectly fine meals, are forgettable. This recipe, unfortunately, falls into the latter category.

That's the real problem with the backlog of cooked recipes that I've amassed in the last couple of months of less-than-active blogging.

By all objective measures, this is an excellent recipe. It's got only five ingredients, and there are only three steps: 1) melt butter; 2) cook corn and shrimp; and 3) stir in scallions, basil and salt and pepper. And just look at that picture! Looks pretty tasty, no? The problem is that I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of eating it. I can only assume that means it didn't make a big impression one way or the other ... not terrible, but not amazingly good either.

Date Cooked: September 12, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: I honestly don't remember

155. Spicy Lemon-Marinated Shrimp (p. 45)

How is The Book like Pvt. Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue? Well, as Bubba explained to Forrest Gump in one of the most memorable movie scenes ever, "shrimp is the fruit of the sea." And both Bubba and The Book know that shrimp can be prepared in innumerable delicious ways:

You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.

But, wait, there's more ... so far in The Project, I've made Cilantro Lime Shrimp, Shrimp in Adobo Sauce, Pad Thai, and now this recipe* for Spicy Lemon-Marindted Shrimp. And that's just the beginning. According to The Book's index, I've got twenty-five more shrimp recipes to make.

The Book says that this recipe is a new take on the classic Southern pickled shrimp. I've never had pickled shrimp, so this was new to me. But this spicy, tangy, briny preparation might just be one of my favorite ways of eating shrimp.

First, I took all of the zest off of a large lemon with a vegetable peeler. Then I squeezed the juice from the lemon and put it in a bowl with the zest. Next, I ground some coriander seeds in a spice grinder and added them to the bowl. I whisked it all up with some white wine vinegar, olive oil, water, sugar, and a whole lot of salt. Finally, I added some pepper flakes. The Book calls for Aleppo chili flakes, but says that "plain old red pepper flakes" are fine, too, so that's what I used.

Next, I added some pickling spices and a whole lot more salt to a pot of boiling water, and boiled some shelled, deveined shrimp for about 90 seconds until they were cooked through. (By the way, thanks for the advice on deveining. I bought "deveined" shrimp from the grocery store, but this time, I didn't remove the vein along the inner curve of the shrimp. I didn't notice any difference in the flavor, and it was a lot less work.) I drained the shrimp and let them cool a little bit.

Then, I put the shrimp in a zip-top bag with the marinade and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight (The Book says to marinate for at least eight hours and up to three days.) I drained the shrimp, put them on a platter and served them as a appetizer at my family's Memorial Day cookout. These shrimp were very tasty. Salty, but tasty. The flavors of the lemon and all of the pickling spices combined in zesty, sweet and sour, puckery deliciousness. I really enjoyed this one.

Date Cooked: May 23, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

* The recipe on epicurous.com feeds fify and calls for ten pounds(!) of shrimp. Unless you're a caterer, go with the recipe in The Book.

147. Shrimp in Adobo Sauce (p. 322)

I decided to make one of The Book's Mexican dishes in honor of Cinco de Mayo.

The Book says that this recipe* is from Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, who was a frequent contributor to Gourmet. She was also the British-born wife of a Mexican UN diplomat, who along with others like Diana Kennedy, is credited with introducing many British and American cooks to Mexican and Latin American food in the 1950s and 1960s.

The foundation of this recipe is the adobo sauce made with dried ancho chiles. Before I get to the chiles, I just have to comment that the term "adobo sauce," as used in the name of this recipe and on cans of chiplote peppers "in adobo sauce," is redundant since "adobo" can mean "sauce" in Spanish. So, saying "Shrimp in Adobo Sauce" is like saying "Shrimp in Sauce Sauce." That just gets on my nerves, like saying "ATM machine" (automated teller machine machine) or "PIN number" (personal identification number number).

Now that I've got that off my chest, back to the "sauce sauce." As I was saying, the sauce is made with dried ancho chiles, which I swear I've seen at my usual grocery store. But of course when I did my shopping for this recipe, there were no anchos to be found. So, I bought some Aji Panca Seco (dried red peppers) and decided to take my chances. Just to be safe, I decided to look my peppers up on the internet, to make sure that they weren't atomiclly hot on the Scoville Scale. I found this cool website called The Cook's Thesaurus which has all kinds of helpful information about food substitutions. I'll use this site again for sure. The Cook's Thesaurus says that ancho chiles (at right) are dried poblano chiles. The Book says that they are sweeter and milder than many other dried chiles. Aji panca chiles (at left) are described as fruity and mild, so I figured that it just might work out OK.

First, I toasted the dried chiles in a hot cast iron skillet for just a couple of seconds on each side. I was really surprised what a difference this made. That little bit of heat made the brittle dried peppers pliable enough to slice open and remove the stems, seeds and veins. Then I broke the chiles up into small pieces and soaked them in some warm water for about a half an hour.

Then I drained the chile pieces and put them into the blender with some garlic, onion and oregano. The Book says that Mexican oregano is preferred for this recipe. The Book's glossary explains that Mexican oregano is not oregano at all, but rather a relative of lemon verbena. Apparently, it tastes like regular oregano without the bitterness. But, after spending $16 on cardamom pods for my Garam Masala, I had already blown my spice budget for the time being, and I decided to go with regular oregano. I blended all of these ingredients with a little bit of water until it was a thick puree.

Next I heated some olive oil in a skillet and added the sauce, cooking it for a few minutes. I added some white wine, white vinegar, sugar and salt, and cooked for a few minutes longer until it was a nice, thick sauce.

Finally, I added the shrimp, stirred to coat and cooked, covered for a few minutes until the shrimp were done.

I served the shrimp and sauce over white rice, and topped it with chopped avacado and cilantro. This was a really delicious meal. The sauce was thick, sweet, smoky and flavorful. Even though there were no tomatoes in the recipe, it reminded me of a hearty arrabiata sauce. The flavor of the white wine came through as a noticible and pleasant element. I was a little dissapointed by the lack of heat in this dish. That, of course, is probably entirely attributable to my chile substitution, and could have been corrected with a sprinke of dried red pepper flakes or a dash of tobasco. The other thing that I was dissapointed by was the underripeness of my avacado garnish. That, also, is not the fault of The Book, but rather my own poor produce selection skilz.


Date Cooked: May 2, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy (but this isn't a quick weeknight meal due to the extra time required to toast, seed and soak the dried chiles)
Rating: A-

*This recipe isn't online.

143. Cilantro Lime Shrimp (p. 46)

OK, I think I need a little lesson in shrimp anatomy, or at least in shrimp preparation. In order to make this recipe,* I bought a pound of frozen "deveined" shrimp. I thawed them in a bowl of ice water, and then I started to peel them. That's when I noticed the dark vein running down the inner curve of each shrimp. But wait, I though I had paid a couple of bucks extra to get "deveined" shrimp. What's the deal? Turns out that shrimp have two veins. One website I found called the vein on the outer curve the "sand vein" and the vein on the inner curve the "blood vein." Another website said that many people only take out the vein on the outer curve.

My shrimp had a slice down the outer curve of each shrimp, and the outer vein had been removed. The inner vein was still intact. I decided to take that one out, too. To I took a sharp, pointy paring knife and did some shrimp surgery. I made a thin slice down the inner curve of each shrimp and pretty easily removed the inner vein. But my question is, did I have to? I'd appreciate your thoughts about deveining.

With my shrimp fully deveined, I made some marinade. I mashed some garlic and salt together with my chef's knife to make a paste, and whisked that together with some fresh lime juice, orange marmalade, finely chopped fresh cilantro, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. (The Book also calls for a little bit of soy sauce, but I left it out due to our current soy/wheat/dairy ban.) I reserved some of the marinade for a dipping sauce. I tossed the rest of the marinade into a zip-top bag with the shrimp. I let the shrimp marinate in the refrigerator for a little while.

Next, I drained the shrimp and patted it dry with a paper towel. I heated some oil in a skillet and sauteed half of the shrimp for a few minutes until they started to brown. I transferred them to a plate and cooked the rest of the shrimp.

This was a delicious way to eat shrimp. The citrus and cilantro flavors are bright and clean. The marmalade gives the shrimp a touch of sweetness and the red pepper flakes give just a hint of heat. We thought that they were just a bit greasy. Maybe the amount of oil in the recipe could be reduced?

This recipe is in The Book's hors d'oeuvres chapter. I could see these shrimp being served as a passed hors d'oeuvre at a cocktail party, but only if there were plenty of napkins. This is definitely a "finger lickin' good" shrimp. I think that a better use for this dish might be as part of a meal of "small plates" (i'm thinking non-Spanish tapas). It would also be great for dinner, served over rice, drizzled with the reserved marinade and accompanied by some crisp steamed vegetables, like snow peas. However you serve it, and you should, you'll enjoy this one.

Date Cooked: April 19, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

*On epicurius.com, this recipe is called "Coriander Lime Shrimp." Same thing.

13. Pad Thai (p. 245)

This recipe sent me on my first, but I'm sure not my last, Project Field Trip. My local Stop and Shop didn't have two of the key ingredients: tamarind and baked tofu. (Boo, Stop and Shop.) So, it was off to the chichi Whole Foods in the chichi town across the river. They had the baked tofu (sort of, but more on that later), but not the tamarind. Whole Foods does get points, however, for having employees who actually know what tamarind is (I didn't even bother asking at S&S), and they promised that they could get me some in a couple of days. But, like Veruka Salt, I wanted it now! So, it was off to the local Indo-Pak grocery.




Not only did they have tamarind, but they had three kinds of tamarind: Indian, Thai and concentrate. I opted for the Thai variety (seemed like the right choice since I was making Pad Thai, after all). Now, I've never used tamarind before, and I wasn't even sure exactly what it was. According to Wikipedia, tamarind gets its name from Arab traders who called it tamar hindi, or Indian date. The pulp of the legume-like fruit of the tamarind tree is a common seasoning in Asian and Latin American foods. The Thai variety I bought comes in a pliable 10 ounce block of the dried pulp. It kind of looks like a brick of mashed dried dates, and it has the same stickiness. Following The Book's instructions, I broke off a two-tablespoon-sized chunk, soaked it in boiling water and strained it. That was the base of the sauce. Tamarind has a sweet and tart flavor that is a key element in Pad Thai. The Wikipedia article notes that many recipes try to fake the flavor with lime juice and/or white vinegar. But, as The Book says, "there are no American shortcuts here."

I will admit, however, that I did use one tiny shortcut. I used frozen shrimp instead of fresh, which is probably no big deal, but the editors of Gourmet would no doubt frown on the fact that they were still frozen when I put them in the wok. They did give off a bit more liquid than I expected as they cooked, and it probably slowed down the cooking a little, but I don't think that it affected the final product at all.

The Book says that if you can't find plain baked tofu (I couldn't), you can use the flavored kind if you rinse and pat it dry. So, as I alluded to above, Whole Foods didn't have plain baked tofu, but they did have a plethora of flavored varieties. I chose Thai Sesame Peanut flavor since it seemed to be the mildest of all the choices, and even if I couldn't rinse off all of the flavor, it would at least compliment the Pad Thai flavors. It wasn't an issue, though, because the goopy peanut sesame sauce rinsed off nicely, and I don't think that its flavor carried over to the dish. If you've never had baked tofu, it has an odd firm yet spongy texture, and it has a squeaky feel when you bite it.

As I studied this recipe before I got started, I realized that a lot needed to happen in a short amount of time. (Cook this for 1 minute, add that and cook for 2-3 minutes, toss in these and cook for another 2 minutes, etc.) So, the majority of my prep time was spent getting my mise ready. As an aside, The Book claims that the "Active Time" for this recipe is 1 1/2 hours. It took me closer to two hours for this one, but I'm not complaining. The Book suggests making the noodles in advance and putting them in a bowl covered tightly with plastic wrap and keeping them at room temperature until they're needed. I did this (and I also added a ladle full of the cooking liquid to the bowl), and it worked like a charm. I'll try this trick in the future with other Asian noodle dishes, since coordinating noodle-cooking time with the rest of the recipe is usually a challenge.

Once I was ready to get cooking, it was over in a flash. I was glad that I took the extra time to get all of the ingredients ready and lined up in little bowls on the counter.

The finished dish was excellent. I've had a few other Pad Thai recipes at home, mostly from Cooking Light, and while good, none of these recipes resembled the Pad Thai you get in restaurants. (One of the recipes even had tomato paste(!) in it.) This Pad Thai came very close to the real thing. My wife thought that it had too much heat (the recipe calls for 1 1/2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes), but I thought that it was just right.

I'll definitely make this again, especially if I can't find anything else to do with the huge block of tamarind that's now sitting in my cupboard.

Date Cooked: June 29, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty Hard
Rating: A