Gulf Coast Steamed Shrimp with Champagne Vinegar Sauce

Wanna kick? see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w9iRq2ZdGw

Bryan Caswell is one of my favorite chefs. If you are ever in Houston, ya gotta go to his award-winning seafood restaurant, the Reef. Simply fabulous!

So, when my son arrive with one of his children, we just had to make one of Bryan's creation. My son is a great cook himself, having helped pay for the college expenses by being a line cook. We took on how to turn all of this:

into this:

A great summer meal for the patio!

So, what is needed is:

20 large shrimp, shell and vein removed and butterflied

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

salt and pepper

2 shallots, finely diced

3/4 cup champagne vinegar

1/2 cup heavy cream

8 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon (or more) cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and place on a buttered sheet pan. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of water around the shrimp. Steam in the oven until just pink and cooked through, about 7 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Make the sauce - this is good. We guess that the sweetness must come from the champagne vinegar. This makes enough sauce for probably eight servings, or 40 shrimp.

Here's how not to hold a shallot when dicing:

Place the champagne vinegar and the diced shallots in a sauce pan and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to simmer and reduce down to 1/2 of the liquid.

Then add heavy cream and heat slightly until warm. Remove from heat and whisk in the butter a tablespoon at a time. This cools the sauce down and thickens it. Add the cayenne pepper and salt to taste. Could also sprinkle cayenne pepper on top of the shrimp after the sauce has been spooned over them.

As seen on the plate above, serve with a salad. Bryan suggests an arugula based salad with your favorite vinaigrette. My spouse, however, prefers a salad that does not use arugula. So we make a nice summer salad that included avocado, pearl tomatoes, red pepper, raspberries, olives and feta cheese, with a raspberry-pomegranate vinaigrette. Also included some crispy shallots on top. (thinly slice the shallots and fry up until browned and crispy in olive oil and butter - drain on paper towels before putting on the salad.)

Goes great with Sister Creek's Muscat Canelli.

Enjoy! (We sure did!)

Not All Green Soups are Pea Soups!

Potage a la Florentine

This is a great cream of spinach soup! Here's most of the ingredients. Can you tell what is missing?

Let's start and see what it is.

First, take the onion (it's there) and slice up a 1/2 cup of it.

Then cook that up in about 2 Tablespoons of butter in the stock pot. Hmm, the butter is there as well! This should be over medium to medium-high heat and take about 8 to 10 minutes. The onion should be tender but not browned!

Now while the onion is cooking, take that almost 2 pounds (30 or so ounces) of spinach that has been washed and roughly chop that up.

Here's a bowl full of chopped spinach!

That is a lot of spinach! It will cook down. 

Stir that spinach into the onion, 

cover, and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring on occasion to prevent scorching of the spinach.

Now, pour in 5 cups of chicken broth and stir that up. (chicken broth was in the picture!)

Add a pinch or so of nutmeg. And this:

Is it hailing?

Nope - that is 1/2 cup of white rice. (That is what was not in the picture!)

Cover and let it simmer for 20 to 25 minutes until the rice is soft. Should look like:

While that is happening, take 2 egg yolks in a bowl and stir them up.

 To the eggs, blend in 1/2 cup of heavy cream.

Now, take that cooked spinach and put it in a blender. This will take 2 to 3 different blendings. It will not work by trying to cram all of that into the blender at one time!

Dribble some, perhaps a cup or so, into the egg/cream mixture while whipping it. Then pour everything into the stock pot. 

You can stop right here and cool everything down to be heated up within a day or two. If this is done, bring to a simmer before serving.

Right before serving, blend in about 4 Tablespoons of soft butter, or, 1/2 cup of heavy cream. (Enriching agents!)

I like to have some shaved Parmesan cheese or an 'island' of cheese in the bowl that the soup is poured over.

Sever with a Sauvignon Blanc from Llano or another Texas winery.

Enjoy!

Stuffed Apricots

Boy, are these tasty! And, easy to make!

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Have the rack in the upper third of the oven.

Butter a pie dish.

Take dried apricots and stuff them with a dab of blue cheese and a roasted almond.

I like to open up the apricot like a clam shell and make an indentation on both sides, sorta hollow it out a wee bit.

How is an almond roasted? In a frying pan. Place raw almonds in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Shake the heck out of them for 4 to 5 minutes. This is to start the release of the oils without burning the almond. That is all that needs to be done.

Place all of these apricots on the buttered pie dish. Stick ‘em with toothpicks. Into the oven for a dozen minutes or so. Want to heat them, melt the cheese, start breaking down the sugars in the apricot, but do not burn them!

Out they come. On to the serving tray, and watch them disappear!

Enjoy with the Alamosa Cherokee Rose.

Braised Scallops with Raspberry

Scallops make a wonderful fish course. They are super easy to cook and do not take much time. Here's what I start with:

Upper left is fennel that has been sliced into sticks. That forms the bed for the scallop.

Middle upper is the coriander seed that gets pulverized.

Upper right is the mashed avocado that has some lemon juice added to it so it does not discolor.

Lower right are the raspberries.

Lower left is some vermouth with lemon zest.

And, of course, the lower middle are the sea scallops. Always, always, always find that muscle bit on the scallop that connects it to the shell and remove this bit if the fish monger has not already done so.

Not shown is butter and coconut oil.

So, take the butter and coconut oil, and plop it in the frying pan and get the butter oil hot. The scallops should sizzle right away when they hit the pan. Should be on medium-high heat.

Dry the scallops! You want to sear them, not steam them!

Plop the scallops into the hot pan. Sear them for 3 minutes, no more, no less, to get a good crust on the one side.

While the first side is searing, pulverize the coriander seed and add it to the vermouth/zest. Also mash up one raspberry and add it to the vermouth/zest. Also, get the plates ready with the fennel beds.

Check the scallops to be sure they are not sticking to the bottom of the pan.

After the initial 3 minutes, flip them over and sear the other side for 3 minutes. One minute into this three minutes, pour on the vermouth/zest/coriander/raspberry mixture. It should go 'POOOSSSHHHH'. Tilt the frying pan and using a good size spoon, baste the scallops as they continue to sear. During these last 2 minutes this should form a nice sauce for the scallops.

Once the three minutes are up, the sauce should have been reduced to a nice coating on the scallops and the scallops can be placed on the bed.

Then, top with the mashed avocado and a raspberry.

Here is how one looks on a bed of salad. Notice the nice, brown crust on the scallop. That is the ideal.

Enjoy with a perhaps a Blanc du Blois wine from Haak, or a Sauvignon Blanc from Llano or Fall Creek.

Celebration!

During Lent, every Sunday is a mini-Easter. There are 40 days in Lent - Sundays are not included. So, this pass Sunday was a great day to celebrate. Our church (Lord of Life - LOL - isn't that a great acronym for a church! - Lutheran Church in The Woodlands, TX, see: http://www.lordoflifeonline.org/index1e.htm) runs a Bible in 90 Days or B90D program wherein you meet once a week to see a video, have some discussions and support one another to read the entire Bible in 90 days - read it like a novel. I travel too much to volunteer to be a facilitator. So, I like to raise these facilitators up and give thank them for their calling by hosting a seven course food and wine pairing. So, this pass Sunday was the day.

Here are the wines:

Yep, every one from Texas. This was, by far, the best start-to-finish meal that I have ever put together.

Here's the menu:

Stuffed Apricots

Alamosa Cherokee Rose

Mixed Salad

Becker Moscato

Potage a la Florentine

Llano Sauvignon Blanc

Braised Scallops with Fennel and Raspberry

Fall Creek Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc

Boeuf Bourguignon

Boiled potatoes

Glazed carrots

Becker Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

Assorted Cheese, Fruits, Nuts

Flat Creek Estate Super Texan

Le Gateau Victoire au Chocolat, Mousseline

Sister Creek Muscat Canelli

Coffee and Tea

The recipes you can see on the blog elsewhere. Links are provided.

I was overall pleased with the wines. In the future I would probably try a Blanc du Bois from Haak instead of the Sauvignon Blanc with the scallops.


Enjoy!

Rack of Lamb

My sister and her husband, along with my spouse and I, belong to the same wine club. So, every 3 months we get the same wines. This month we got this wine.

Turn's out that this is a great one to have a rack of lamb.

So, here's the recipe that I sent her.

I made it as well to add pictures to this blog. (There is one picture that my sister sent me of her skills (or, perhaps it was her spouse's skills?) at the end of this entry.)




Enjoy!

Rack of Lamb

Buying: The rack of lamb is the whole rib chop section from one side of the lamb, ribs # 6 through 12. Also called a ‘lamb rib roast’. One rack will serve 2 to 3 people. Look for the purple grading stamp – should be USDA Prime. Choice is the next grade – also very good. The purple grading stamp should be left on the meat. Color should be fresh and deep bright red, almost a silky sheen to it. Fat should be hard and creamy white. The eye of the meat should be reasonably big and rounded. All the butchers I know already fully trim (Frenching the bone ends) the roast. However, you can do this yourself as well.

So, here is the starting point for the rack of lamb.

Prepping: You can make the rack ready to roast well ahead. After their first searing, they need no more attention for 15 minutes.

I love a mustard coating!

1 clove garlic

½ tsp salt (noniodized)

½ tsp dried thyme

2 Tb Dijon-type mustard

3 Tb olive oil

½ cup bread crumbs – I like to use Panko style

3 Tb melted butter

If it ain’t done already, trim off the excess fat. You want to remove all but a thin covering of fat.

Score the tops of the racks lightly – make shallow crisscross knife slashes in the covering fat.

Mash the garlic and salt together.

To mash the garlic, use a big knife. Here's the process.

 
 Here's how to measure the salt.

Mashing the salt and garlic is done by scraping the knife over the mass.



Keep scraping back and forth until it looks like:

Mash in the thyme.

Use the same process with the back and forth motion of the knife.

Then beat in the mustard and oil.

Paint this mixture over the tops and meaty ends of the rack.

Set rack meat side up on an oiled roasting pan (like a pizza pan) and fold a strip of foil over the rib ends to keep them from scorching.

If prepared in advanced, may be covered by plastic and stuck in the refrigerator. If you do this, then be sure to let it come to room temperature (about 1 hour on the counter) before proceeding.

Cooking: Preheat oven to 500 (yes, five hundred) F and set oven rack in upper middle level. This high temperature will sear the lamb. (I have also seared in a frying pan, however, this oven method is easier and you have one less pan to wash.) When oven is ready, in goes the lamb for 10 minutes. No more, no less!!!

When time is up, slide out oven rack, rapidly spread a coating of bread crumbs over the top and baste with dribbles of melted butter.

Turn temperature down to 400 F and roast for 15 minutes more. Then, start checking temperature of the meat. Rosy rare is 125 F on an instant meat thermometer, or, when pressed with your finger begins to show a slight resistance rather than being squashy like raw meat.

When done, let it rest! If possible decrease the oven temperature to 120 F, or use a warming oven, or let the roasting oven cool off with the door open and check with an oven thermometer before you put the rack back in. I like to let it rest for about 20 minutes.

Here's how mine turned out (before cleaning the crumbs off and adding the glazed carrots and other garnish to make it look nice):

When cut, it is like:

Enjoy: If you want to make a little sauce to moisten the meat, you can do that as well.

I like to serve with steamed carrots, perhaps glazed with butter and brown sugar or honey.

Here's my sister's attempt. You let me know which is better.

Grilling Time!

Grilling is easy. Take veggies (onions, tomatoes, whatever) and skewer them on one skewer. 

Skewer the meat on different skewers, each type of meat on their own. That way all of one meat gets cooked the same amount of time and you have the flexibility of timing (pork longer, chicken not as long, beef even less time, tuna, less than that, shrimp real quick).

Steamed veggies go good with it as well. Brussels sprouts and turnips take about the same amount of time to be steamed - about 20 - 25 minutes. For the sprouts, cut a cross on the root end to help in the steaming process.

 Sure was good! Here you can see the pork at the top, the chicken and the beef - all done correctly! along with the roasted (grilled) tomatoes!

Now that they know how to do it, I can just relax and enjoy the wine!