Nouveau Creole-Italian Shrimp Dish

Shrimp a la Nage 'Barbecue,' Baby Potatoes, Baby Artichokes, Rosemary

Of the two great cuisines of South Louisiana, this dish typifies Creole.  I'm here defining Creole as New Orleans fusion, big city cuisine, classical European-inflected elegance.  Specifically, this calls to mind the tradition of Italian cooking in New Orleans.  After all, the first Italian and Sicilian immigrants that came to the US in the 19th century came to Louisiana.

This dish is a spin on BBQ shrimp the way they do it at Pascal's Manale on Napoleon Ave.  However, I lightened the sauce, added some actual vegetables, and serve it in the broth.

For the broth:
Shell 2# of shrimp
Saute the shells with olive oil
Pour 2 beers over the shells and add 1 lemon, cut in half, 1 head of garlic, cut in half, and 2 branches of rosemary.
Add a whole stick of butter to this mess.
Add water to cover, about an ounce of worcestershire, and season to taste with Slap Ya Mama shrimp boil and salt.  The broth is actually eaten with a spoon, so go easy on the boil, watch the spicy.

Simmer this 35 minutes and strain.  You will want to press the shells in the strainer.

Trim and halve 1 dozen baby artichokes.  Cook these in the flavorful shrimp-beer-butter broth.  When they are tender, strain and let them hang out in the cooler.

Add 1 pound of baby potatoes to the broth.  Simmer until they are just tender and then let them soak up the broth's flavors while they cool.  They are like little sponges.  Remove them when the broth is cool.

Ok, so now you have:
1) 2# raw shrimp
2) 24 little pieces of shrimp and rosemary-flavored baby artichoke
3) 1# of little tiny shrimp and rosemary-flavored potatoes
4) An amazing shrimp/artichoke/butter/garlic/rosemary/worcestershire/beer broth

Heat the broth back to a boil, rewarm the veg in the broth, correct the seasoning (with lemon, worcestershire, Slap ya Mama boil, and salt, as needed) and poach the shrimp.  When the shrimp are cooked, sprinkle the whole thing with a tiny amount of chopped rosemary and ladle into bowls.


D, D's mom, Lynn and her girlfriend Alisha, and I, had this for dinner the other night and it was great.

The Missing Booklet

Hello, dearie!  I finally got around to opening the secret envelope in the Lucky Peach.  Inside is this little booklet.  I haven't gotten to read it yet, but it is a journal covering MAD, which is a culinary symposium hosted by Rene Redzepi of NOMA.

There are reports of what the speakers had to say, but a lot of that is probably available as on-line videos anyway.  There are some recipes, but not enough to justify the cost of re-buying the magazine in the first place.

At any rate, I propose that when I am finished with the little booklet, I will xerox anything that I want to save and just mail it to you.  I would be happy to share.  You brought me my first Lucky Peach, and for that I owe you.  And if I ever need to look at it again, that would just give me a great excuse to get together with you, perhaps for some fish-ass-kicking.  BTW, if you would please move the fuck back to Charleston, I would appreciate it.

As regards your review so far, I have the following reactions.

Over Easy: First I say, don't knock Daniel's 20 minute scrambled eggs till you've tried it.  In my experience, eggs are one of those things that you can go overboard with technique, and be handsomely rewarded.  I have seen several chefs do some pretty over-the-top things with eggs, and sometimes too much is just enough.

Cases in point:
Bernard L'Ouiseau used to crack an egg white into a buttered pan, and then cook it till it was almost set in a medium-low oven.  Then, he would gently set the yolk in the middle of the white and put it back in the oven until the yolk was just warm.  This was how he did sunny-side up eggs, because he was frustrated with the bottom of the yolk overcooking while he waited for the top of the white.  Oh BTW, Bernard L'Ouiseau, La Cote d'Or, 3 Michelin stars.

Patrick O'Connel has a method for scrambling eggs that Tarver taught me.  He cracks the eggs whole into a steel bowl and gently stirs them over a double boiler, not breaking the yolks (or at least as few as possible), so the whites cook into curds.  Then, when the whites are set, he turns off the heat and stirs vigorously while adding whole butter and salt.  The yolks all break, and warm through from the heat of the whites, but this way you can stop the cooking while they are still kinda liquidy.  Its over-easy scrambled eggs.  By the way, Patrick O'Connel, AKA the Notorious P.O.C., isn't in the Michelin guide, but he has 5 stars, 5 diamonds.

Having said all that, I think I would prefer someone make that omelet for me, rather than me making it myself.  And the ban xeo does look really good.

The Imaginary Dinner was indeed a downer, but sometimes sad things happen.  Maybe telling the story made the cook feel better...  Who can say?


All the World's a Stage
This one made me think of you, and of my first stage.  I don't think we would have been friends if we had met when we were both 22.  I was a little partied-up piece of shit.  But I did work really hard, I guess.  I wish I could have been there for your stage.  All this aside, you make an interesting point about cooking school.  My feeling is this: cooking school is hugely expensive and wasteful.  You can learn a lot more, faster, by staging.  However, its during cooking school that most of us develop the confidence to go out and stage.  The act of enrolling in school means you have jackets, and a decent set of knives, and it kind of demystifies the whole chef-cook relationship.  I feel like by the time a lot of us realize cooking school wasn't necessary, we are already graduated.  Obviously, I feel like staging is the second-best way to learn, but I'll go you one better.  I absolutely believe in the power of mentoring.  Find someone whose skills you admire that cares about you.  I heard an MIT graduation ceremony on the radio, and one of the things the guy said was this:

"There is a three-step road map to success.  1, find a good mentor.  2, surround yourself with people that know more than you.   3, bend over backwards making yourself useful to these people.


So that's my thoughts on that.  I'll send you the booklet when I'm finished reading it.

Love you sis