Coffee heat rising

shrimp

Impromptu shrimp curry

by

I ate it before I could take a photo of it. Sorry. It deserved a picture.

The other day M’hijito and I went over to the new westside Lee Lee, an Asian supermarket of local fame. While there, I picked up a three-lifetime supply of Madras curry.

If you’ve never tried Madras curry powder, consider seeking it out or making it. So lovely! It’s spicey-warm and…well, the only word I can think of is “mellow.” It’s a deliciously mellow, just slightly hot spice.

Around 10:15 this evening, I was moved to fix dinner. As you can imagine, the bare fact that it was after ten o’clock before I got around to eating reflected a difficult, nay, hair-pulling day. Luckily for you, you weren’t here!

Anyway, with the air conditioning system fixed and an estimate of taxes on Social Security benefits run and a new set of survival figures calculated (*$%$&*#@!!!), bills paid, budget rejiggered, pool cleaned, copy read, more copy left unread, inadvertently dessicated lime tree rescued, associate editor’s new GDU horror story confronted, friend’s woes heard, dog walked, thermostat re-re-re-reprogrammed, and the general hysteria ebbing, I wanted something easy and fast to prepare. Pulled an open bag of frozen shrimp out of the fridge and proceeded:

I had…

• four or five medium-sized frozen shrimp (one serving), defrosted and patted dry with a towel or paper towels
• some leaf lettuce
• a ripe mango (any fruit would do)
• 1/4 lime
• Madras curry, about 1 Tbsp
• about a tsp. of whole mustard seed
• 1 little green onion, coarsely chopped
• a few spoonsful of cooked rice
• a splash of olive oil

Peel and slice the mango. Place some nice leaves of lettuce on a dinner plate and set the mango slices on the lettuce. Squeeze a little lime juice over this mini-salad.

Pour a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan. Warm briefly over medium-high heat. Add the defrosted shrimp and the cut-up onion, a tablespoon or so of curry powder, and a sprinkle of mustard seeds. Cook the shrimp until it’s about done. Add some cooked rice. Stir gently until the shrimp is finished cooking and the rice is warm.

Place the cooked shrimp and rice on or very near the mango salad.

This is a lovely flavor combination. Easy, quick, and minimally messy. Good eating!

🙂

Cheap Eats: Dine in, not out! Shoulda had shrimp

by

M’hijito came by the other day to eyeball the house I was thinking about buying. Feeling flush over the $150 his current attempt to kick the nicotine addiction is saving him this month, he invited me out to dinner.

I’d just bought a mess of gorgeous shrimp at Costco and offered to cook that. He said no, he’d rather go out to eat.

O.K. So we went to a neighborhood restaurant, where the menu was loaded with yup-sounding items ranging in price from $10 for appetizers to $20 and up. He said the food was all right but not as great as the menu sounded. We each ordered a beer; he asked for the seared tuna and I got a pork quesadilla.

For fourteen bucks, the pork quesadilla consisted of a wheat tortilla (about 2 cents worth), a small handful of pulled pork (available in bulk at Costco, probably around 50 cents or a dollar’s worth), some melted cheddar cheese (maybe 5 cents worth?), and a sprinkling of barbecue sauce (negligible). Unless it’s annealed onto spareribs, I’m not fond of barbecue sauce (which wasn’t mentioned on the menu), so I found this creation unappetizing. Beer was good, though.

M’hijito said the tuna was less than top quality (I tasted it: indeed, it was a bit strong) and not seared but scorched.

Neither of us came anywhere close to eating everything on our plates. He took the leftover quesadilla to eat at home, but since he left for New York City at 5:30 the next morning, the stuff presumably will go to waste. The tab, plus tip: $60!

For a fifth of that (or less), the two of us could have had the following:

Shoulda Had Shrimp

  • 4 to 6 large shrimp per diner
  • one juicy lime
  • 1 or 2 fresh tomatoes, depending on number of servings
  • spaghetti (enough to serve all diners)
  • dried herbes de provence or fines herbes, if you have it; or a little dried basil or marjoram
  • fresh basil, if you have it
  • fresh parsley, if you have it.
  • 1 or 2 cloves garlic (to taste, and depending on number of servings)
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • shredded Parmesan or Asiago cheese

Peel the shrimp and, if necessary, devein them. Lay them in a single layer on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Squeeze the lime over them, being sure each shrimp gets lime juice all over it. Allow to stand for 20 minutes or more. If you leave them to marinate longer than a half-hour, put them in the refrigerator.

Dice the tomatoes and sprinkle a little salt and pepper over them; mix in any dried herbs you decide to use. If you have basil, chop it up. Chop a little parsley. Peel and mince the garlic.

Bring a kettleful of water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti al dente.

While the spaghetti is boiling, skim the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil; heat over a medium-high flame. When the oil is hot, add the shrimp. Toss around until they turn bright pink; do not overcook. Add the garlic while you’re stirring the shrimp. When the shrimp appear to be almost cooked, pour any lime juice left in the marinating dish into the pan, and then add the tomatoes. Stir quickly. Add the basil (if you’re using it) and parsley at the last minute.

Apportion the cooked spaghetti among the diners’ plates and top with the shrimp mixture. Garnish with cheese, as desired.

You could serve the shrimp with rice instead of spaghetti. Or hold the starch and simply stir-fry or grill a combination of your favorite veggies (maybe some sliced zucchini, a few pieces of onion, and some sliced bell pepper?) to go with.