Monday, September 12, 2011.
The New Shrimp Dish.
My next-door neighbor gets up shortly after five in the morning, starts up some kind of motorized loader, and loads something. This wouldn't bother me were it not for the worldwide signal that something big and heavy is backing up. Beep! Beep! Beep! It sounds like an alarm clock, and has exactly the same effect on a sleeping person.
We had to get up early anyway. Max is coming over to put the new roof on the the little house out back that shelters our water well pump and tank. Max is an old carpenter who keeps chugging away to stay busy. In the late 1990s he built our deck in exchange for an old automobile. He returned a couple of years later to build some planting boxes around the house's perimeter. Mary Ann thinks his work is excellent. So do I, although I have qualms about the planting boxes, which seem to me to give termites a path into the house--but what do I know?
Mary Ann never forgot Max's phone number. He is back today to tackle not only the small roofing project, but also to replace the fascia above the carport. I'm wondering how he will get up there to do it. Max doesn't look like the kind of guy you'd want on a ladder.
Supper tonight was the shrimp dish I meant to do yesterday. It was derailed when Mary Ann said she didn't feel like peeling the shrimp, but wouldn't let me do it, either. Today, I wound up peeling the shrimp anyway. The peels and the usual seasoning vegetables went into a pot of water on low heat. Forty minutes later, I had a nice-looking, intense shrimp stock. Step One is done.
Now, a mixture of butter and olive oil in a pan, heated to bubbling. Chopped garlic, chopped celery, crushed red pepper. When I could smell the garlic, I added a half-cup of well-oxidized white wine (about which more in a moment). Brought that to a boil for a couple of minutes, then added about a half-cup of the shrimp stock. Additives: Lemon juice. Worcestershire. Tabasco soy sauce. A heaping tablespoon of mild pepper jelly. I let it all reduce until it got thick enough to call a sauce. Step Tow was done.
Meanwhile, sliced carrots, green beans, and celery sticks were in a steam basket getting bendable. Rinsed them with cold water to keep flaccidity from setting in. Step Three.
Into the pan went the shrimp. Big, beautiful, but previously frozen. (Why is Rouse's selling this when shrimp season is in high gear? Wish one of the shrimp trucks could have been found.) Moved things around until the shrimp were pink and firm all over. Now the vegetables. I cooked them until they were heated through. Tasted the sauce: a little too much lemon or salt or both--but nothing could be done about that, and Mary Ann likes it that way anyhow. Step Last.
She microwaved a package combining several mixed grains, all of which had excellent health credentials. (Mary Ann only cooks for health now.) Barley, three kinds of rice, quinoa. Actually, this stuff was good, particularly with the shrimp--and I can guarantee that was utterly unplanned.
We agreed that this was a very good dish. I got lucky again. I emptied the bottle of oxidized Chardonnay, vintage 1987, into my glass. It was brown and cloudy. I drank it anyway. And now all the white wine from our wedding reception--each bottle bearing our name and February 11, 1989--has been exhausted. In more ways than one.
Full recipe in the Recipes section of today's NOMenu.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
