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Saturday, March 24, 2007

A new Shrimp dish

The April issue of Cooking Light has officially arrived, but I'm still making my way through some of the March recipes. During Lent, we go meatless on Fridays, but this is not a big deal for us since I try to fit in meatless meals on a regular basis. Here's one thing I never understood. If the purpose of not eating meat is to symbolize sacrifice, why is it considered a sacrifice to eat seafood? Lobster, shrimp, lump crab instead of chicken, pork or beef? Hmmm.....

Creole Shrimp RĂ©moulade over Baby Arugula

Sacrifice or not, shrimp was on the menu for last night. Cooking Light calls this a salad, but for me, it's simply shrimp served over greens. I added some sliced red bell pepper for a little crunch, nutrition and color.

The cooking process has you do a mini shrimp boil, something I've never done before. I do not keep large containers of cayenne pepper around since it's usually used so sparingly, so I could not use the 3 tablespoons this recipe calls for. I used about a 1/2 teaspoon and then dumped in some Frank's hot sauce to try to up the heat without using my entire container of cayenne. I never tasted the shrimp on its own without the sauce, so I can't say whether cooking the shrimp this way actually added a lot of flavor.

The sauce is delicious - the boys were rather rudely licking their plates. The raw, chopped onion did not overpower the sauce as I feared and all the flavors work nicely together. It could have used a little more hot sauce for our tastes, but that may not be true if you cook the shrimp exactly as written in the recipe. I love arugula and although some of its pepperiness came through, it seemed a little lost under this very flavorful sauce - I really think you could use just about any green for this recipe. I did like the arugula with it, I just wish I could have tasted more of it - perhaps arugula is best used with a sauce or dressing that better lets its flavors shine through.

This dish goes together easily and calls for a little chilling time after it is assembled. The rémoulade is so good that we started envisioning using it as a salad dressing (thinning it out with some olive oil first), using it over fish or even on chicken. Or as a dipping sauce for fondue. In any case, it's a versatile sauce that will certainly be used in this kitchen again.

2 comments:

  1. What exactly is "Creole Mustard"?
    And can you buy this at the grocery store?
    Thanks so much

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  2. Sabrina - Great question - I should have addressed that in my post! I found a bottle of Creole mustard by Zatarains at my supermarket, - it's a whole grain mustard - but I decided to use the whole grain mustard I already had. I haven't tasted Creole mustard to see if there is it has more kick than regular whole grain mustard, though, so I can't speak to the taste differences. I'm just not a big fan of buying a lot of specialty ingredients that may never get used again.....

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