When you cook a lot, you develop a "nose" not just literally but also when reading recipes of where magnificence may lie. This one is from Fuchsia Dunlop's latest book Land of Fish and Rice which are recipes from the Jiangnan region of China.
It was invented by a street food vendor which is evident since everything except the noodles and the very quick stir-fry can be made ahead of time.
Literally "spring onion oil noodles", this recipe is simplicity itself. She rightfully compares it to the Italian spaghetti aglio e peperoncino.
The textures blend perfectly — the soft noodles slippery coated with the oil, the crunchy shrimp soaked in flavor, the crispy and soft spring onions, the umami.
This recipe is also "naked". The short list of ingredients tell you that. It's also an umami-bomb. Perfect for a light lunch or a snack.
This stuff is seriously addictive. The CC will not be surprised if some (most?) of the blog readers here start craving it weekly.
(Source: Fuchsia Dunlop)
Ingredients
(serves 2)
7 oz dried noodles
2 tbsp dried shrimp
2 tsp Shaoxing wine
4 spring onions (cut into 2" pieces - both green and white)
4–5 tsp light or tamari soy sauce (to taste)
6 tbsp cooking oil
Note 1: The CC increases the amount of shrimp if he wants a heartier meal.
Recipe
Soak the shrimp in the Shaoxing wine along with some hot water to cover it for 30 minutes. Drain the shrimp. Discard the liquid.
In a wok, heat up the oil and add the onions. Stir fry till the white parts turn golden. Add the shrimp and stir-fry until the onions are browned but not burnt.
In parallel, cook the noodles and drain.
In a bowl, put the soy sauce at the bottom, the noodles above it, and pour the spring onion, shrimp, oil mixture over it. Mix with chopsticks and eat at once.
Showing posts with label dried shrimp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dried shrimp. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Kaeng Som (Thai Sour Curry - แกงส้ม)
This is the ultimate grande dame of Thai curries.
On the one hand, it's so simple to make that it's made almost weekly in Thai households. On the other hand, simply because of that everyone, their mother, their grandmother, their dead great-grandmother and her long-dead ancestors have an opinion about it!
(Read the post about food and identity to understand this phenomenon.)
That having been said, the dish is easy to make casually but extarordinarily hard to make expertly.
It's hard for the same reason that chefs routinely test novices with making an omelette, or that you end up skating naked making certain Italian dishes.
You're using a minimal set of ingredients, and there's no place to hide. Either you nail it or you don't, and if you don't, there's no way to fix it.
It's the ultimate test of technique. It's doubly hard for those of us who didn't grow up with a Thai grandmother beating us up while we were learning. We're going to have to take our beatings the ol'-fashioned way via experience.
What is it?
It's a simple water-based "sour" curry that's really quite "primitive" (to use David Thompson's description) in which vegetables and fish are simmered. It's served with rice (of course!)
There are only five ingredients that matter - chillies (which are emphatically not Thai but New World), garlic, shallots, shrimp paste, and tamarind.
There are also ingredients that will "balance" it - e.g. palm sugar, etc.
All the magic is in the paste which takes a bit of effort with a mortar and pestle. Thai curries simply don't work with food processors. You need to pound the ingredients. (The neighbors rang the bell to check that everything was OK since the sound of pounding wafted out the kitchen window. It sure was, kids, it sure was!)
For the record, it's harder to pound soft ingredients into the right consistency than hard ingredients. This one is filled with soft ingredients — garlic and shallots.
If you persist, and the CC is sure that the readers on this blog are the kind that would do so, you'll be rewarded with sheer magnificence. Everything that is so wonderful about Thai food distilled down into one elegant minimalist package.
Ingredients
Paste
2 tbsp dried shrimp
4-6 long red chilies
3 red shallots
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp shrimp paste
2 cups water
tamarind water (thin)
vegetables
fish
fish sauce (nahm pla) to taste
palm sugar (optional)
Note 1: The kinds of vegetables you can add varies. Long beans are classic as are bamboo shoots, or raw papaya but the CC has seen modern stuff like cauliflower, cabbage, etc.
Note 2: The village roots of this dish should be "obvious".
Note 3: There is a relatively modern variation that plonks in a square-piece of cha-om omelette. Cha-om is going to be impossible to find outside of California. It has a strongly sulfurous smell exactly like that of kala namak in Indian food. The texture is not dissimilar to samphire. If you're feeling particularly flush with money, the combination would do the trick. Otherwise substitute a bitter green and kala namak for a rough approximation.
Note 4: You still need to make the square "omelettes". Cook them thick with egg in a pan like a frittata. Flip, cook the other side. Cool and cut into squares. (They should be quite dry since you're going to plop them into a curry.)
Note 5: This is not a "fancy" dish. All the crazy caveats aside, this is closer to the fast and the furious. You should be able to make it in at most 30 minutes if you get all your ingredients in a row.
Note 6: There is considerable warfare even among the Thai population about how "thin" the curry should be. The CC is going to stay out of this particular "Vietnam".
Note 7: Side dish. The ultimate test of serving Asian food. Keep it simple. The dish is spicy hence sliced cucumbers.
Note 8: You need a fish broth ideally. David Thompson suggests pounding some dried shrimp as the first step of the recipe. Works like a charm. Instant "fish broth" as the deeply dead great-great-great-grandmother would've understood and appreciated.
Note 9: The "correct" sequence of pounding is the driest hardest first to softest wettest last. This just makes it easy to do the pounding. In this case, it would be dried shrimp, soaked chilies, garlic, shallots. and finally shrimp paste.
Recipe
First make the tamarind water. Soak the lump of tamarind in 1/2 cup of boiling water for 20 minutes. Strain it squeezing the tamarind. You can do this directly into the boiling water later.
Soak the separately chilies in boiling water for the same 20 minutes. Pull out the chilies. Reserve the water to add to the broth.
Roast the dried shrimp briefly on a skillet. Put aside. On the same skillet, roast the shrimp paste wrapped in aluminum foil. Flip and keep roasting until it gives off its characteristic smell. Be careful not to burn it.
(These first three steps can clearly be done in parallel.)
Start making the paste. Pound the dried shrimp followed by the chilies, the garlic, and the shallots. Add the roasted shrimp paste and make a smooth paste.
Combine the stock, tamarind water and paste and bring to a boil. Add fish sauce to taste. Add some palm sugar to balance the flavors. Let it simmer for 4-5 minutes.
It should taste hot, sour and salty.
Add the vegetables and let them cook through. Add the fish and let it poach for 2-3 minutes.
Serve at once with rice.
On the one hand, it's so simple to make that it's made almost weekly in Thai households. On the other hand, simply because of that everyone, their mother, their grandmother, their dead great-grandmother and her long-dead ancestors have an opinion about it!
(Read the post about food and identity to understand this phenomenon.)
That having been said, the dish is easy to make casually but extarordinarily hard to make expertly.
It's hard for the same reason that chefs routinely test novices with making an omelette, or that you end up skating naked making certain Italian dishes.
You're using a minimal set of ingredients, and there's no place to hide. Either you nail it or you don't, and if you don't, there's no way to fix it.
It's the ultimate test of technique. It's doubly hard for those of us who didn't grow up with a Thai grandmother beating us up while we were learning. We're going to have to take our beatings the ol'-fashioned way via experience.
What is it?
It's a simple water-based "sour" curry that's really quite "primitive" (to use David Thompson's description) in which vegetables and fish are simmered. It's served with rice (of course!)
There are only five ingredients that matter - chillies (which are emphatically not Thai but New World), garlic, shallots, shrimp paste, and tamarind.
There are also ingredients that will "balance" it - e.g. palm sugar, etc.
All the magic is in the paste which takes a bit of effort with a mortar and pestle. Thai curries simply don't work with food processors. You need to pound the ingredients. (The neighbors rang the bell to check that everything was OK since the sound of pounding wafted out the kitchen window. It sure was, kids, it sure was!)
For the record, it's harder to pound soft ingredients into the right consistency than hard ingredients. This one is filled with soft ingredients — garlic and shallots.
If you persist, and the CC is sure that the readers on this blog are the kind that would do so, you'll be rewarded with sheer magnificence. Everything that is so wonderful about Thai food distilled down into one elegant minimalist package.
Ingredients
Paste
2 tbsp dried shrimp
4-6 long red chilies
3 red shallots
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp shrimp paste
2 cups water
tamarind water (thin)
vegetables
fish
fish sauce (nahm pla) to taste
palm sugar (optional)
Note 1: The kinds of vegetables you can add varies. Long beans are classic as are bamboo shoots, or raw papaya but the CC has seen modern stuff like cauliflower, cabbage, etc.
Note 2: The village roots of this dish should be "obvious".
Note 3: There is a relatively modern variation that plonks in a square-piece of cha-om omelette. Cha-om is going to be impossible to find outside of California. It has a strongly sulfurous smell exactly like that of kala namak in Indian food. The texture is not dissimilar to samphire. If you're feeling particularly flush with money, the combination would do the trick. Otherwise substitute a bitter green and kala namak for a rough approximation.
Note 4: You still need to make the square "omelettes". Cook them thick with egg in a pan like a frittata. Flip, cook the other side. Cool and cut into squares. (They should be quite dry since you're going to plop them into a curry.)
Note 5: This is not a "fancy" dish. All the crazy caveats aside, this is closer to the fast and the furious. You should be able to make it in at most 30 minutes if you get all your ingredients in a row.
Note 6: There is considerable warfare even among the Thai population about how "thin" the curry should be. The CC is going to stay out of this particular "Vietnam".
Note 7: Side dish. The ultimate test of serving Asian food. Keep it simple. The dish is spicy hence sliced cucumbers.
Note 8: You need a fish broth ideally. David Thompson suggests pounding some dried shrimp as the first step of the recipe. Works like a charm. Instant "fish broth" as the deeply dead great-great-great-grandmother would've understood and appreciated.
Note 9: The "correct" sequence of pounding is the driest hardest first to softest wettest last. This just makes it easy to do the pounding. In this case, it would be dried shrimp, soaked chilies, garlic, shallots. and finally shrimp paste.
Recipe
First make the tamarind water. Soak the lump of tamarind in 1/2 cup of boiling water for 20 minutes. Strain it squeezing the tamarind. You can do this directly into the boiling water later.
Soak the separately chilies in boiling water for the same 20 minutes. Pull out the chilies. Reserve the water to add to the broth.
Roast the dried shrimp briefly on a skillet. Put aside. On the same skillet, roast the shrimp paste wrapped in aluminum foil. Flip and keep roasting until it gives off its characteristic smell. Be careful not to burn it.
(These first three steps can clearly be done in parallel.)
Start making the paste. Pound the dried shrimp followed by the chilies, the garlic, and the shallots. Add the roasted shrimp paste and make a smooth paste.
Combine the stock, tamarind water and paste and bring to a boil. Add fish sauce to taste. Add some palm sugar to balance the flavors. Let it simmer for 4-5 minutes.
It should taste hot, sour and salty.
Add the vegetables and let them cook through. Add the fish and let it poach for 2-3 minutes.
Serve at once with rice.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
An Apology to Mexico
Every once in a while the CC needs to get off his high horse. It's never a particularly pleasant process but honesty and scientific accuracy demands that one do so.
The claim has been made that Mexican dried shrimp were the "best" and the CC argued that best is, at best, subjective. Here's the original recipe where he argued that it doesn't matter.
The CC takes it back. It does matter.
The CC walked past a sign at a known store which said "Tenemos camaron seco (+ pescado seco)" and the CC instinctively knew what that meant. Awesome stuff with, at best, a quasi-legal status.
Rocking!!!
So he walked in and asked for it. It was lunch hour and the Mexicans just had a conniption about the
CC asking for it. Some crap was offered and the CC just said, "No."
Common sense prevailed and a bag was produced. After about two minutes, the salesmanship element kicked in and a second bag was pushed onto the CC at a "discount."
The CC recognizes that the price was more than a touch speculative but that's the way the commercial markets work. It's not the end of the world.
The excellence comes from a singular point. It's just shrimp and salt dried in the sun. Nothing else.
Well, these babies kick ass and the Chinese stuff is crap. This is the real deal and CC will bow down to true excellence when he sees it.
Now the CC is one with the sign.
Tenemos camaron seco -- We have dried shrimp!
The claim has been made that Mexican dried shrimp were the "best" and the CC argued that best is, at best, subjective. Here's the original recipe where he argued that it doesn't matter.
The CC takes it back. It does matter.
The CC walked past a sign at a known store which said "Tenemos camaron seco (+ pescado seco)" and the CC instinctively knew what that meant. Awesome stuff with, at best, a quasi-legal status.
Rocking!!!
So he walked in and asked for it. It was lunch hour and the Mexicans just had a conniption about the
CC asking for it. Some crap was offered and the CC just said, "No."
Common sense prevailed and a bag was produced. After about two minutes, the salesmanship element kicked in and a second bag was pushed onto the CC at a "discount."
The CC recognizes that the price was more than a touch speculative but that's the way the commercial markets work. It's not the end of the world.
The excellence comes from a singular point. It's just shrimp and salt dried in the sun. Nothing else.
Well, these babies kick ass and the Chinese stuff is crap. This is the real deal and CC will bow down to true excellence when he sees it.
Now the CC is one with the sign.
Tenemos camaron seco -- We have dried shrimp!
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Weekend Menu
Three meals. Recipes to follow.
Kinilaw
"Guisado" with bamboo shoots, dried shrimp & kale
Umami rice
Salt pickles
Lobster ravioli in vanilla butter sauce
"Shirred" eggs with snails, persillade & tomato paste
♦Filipino Meal
Kinilaw
Salt pickles
Sautéed pea-shoots with garlic & soy sauce
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Som Tam (Thai Green Papaya Salad)
This is a classic street recipe from North-East Thailand (Isaan) that has become so popular that it you can find it all over Thailand now.
It combines the classic Thai tastes — hot, sweet, salty, sour. It's a textural masterpiece and it has umami like no other. It's also visually impressive — something that is most important from the sales perspective of street food.
It is important to understand that the Thai conception of a "salad" is different from Western expectations. It's just a side dish. It might be topped by "pickled blue crab" or "fried pork". It just acts as a base register.
Note the seamless integration of the entirely New World tomato into the mixture. The reason is clear. It's umami as the CC has explained before.
Seasonings in the Thai conception are a little hard to give precise instructions for. The ingredients are precise enough but the quantities rely on "balance" — something that can only be learned via experience. You keep adding counterbalances until it all makes "sense". This sounds vague but it really is not. It's taking into account the variability in the ingredients that make up the mixture.
(Experienced eaters and makers of most South-Asian street food — Indian, Burmese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Filipino — will probably recognize what the CC is saying a lot easier.)
A very quick note about some of the techniques. You need a mortar and pestle which is easy enough. The long beans must be quite young because they are eaten raw. This is simply not possible where the CC lives so a quick blanching is in order. It's the only way to make them edible. Fidelity to the source can only go so far when practicality drives the truck crashing through the door.
Ingredients
1 small raw papaya
8 long beans (cut into 2" lengths)
16-24 cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup dried shimp
1/3 cup peanuts (roasted)
2-4 Thai green chillies (sliced really thin)
2 cloves garlic
2-3 tbsp. palm sugar (substitute with brown sugar)
4 tbsp. nahm pla (fish sauce)
2 limes
Recipe
If your beans are young, ignore this. Otherwise blanch them for no more than 60 seconds in boiling water and put them in an ice-cold bath. Drain and set aside.
Make the sauce. The garlic needs to be finely chopped. Add the garlic, palm sugar, fish sauce and lime juice. Taste to make sure it has the right balance. You may need to add more of the palm sugar, fish sauce or lime juice.
Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves.
The papaya needs to be shredded into thin strips. Either a mandoline or a grater make quick work.
In a mortar and pestle, add the papaya, long beans, shrimp and roasted peanuts. Pound lightly to crush the ingredients just to release some juices and to break up the shrimp and peanuts a bit.
Toss everything together and serve at once.
It combines the classic Thai tastes — hot, sweet, salty, sour. It's a textural masterpiece and it has umami like no other. It's also visually impressive — something that is most important from the sales perspective of street food.
It is important to understand that the Thai conception of a "salad" is different from Western expectations. It's just a side dish. It might be topped by "pickled blue crab" or "fried pork". It just acts as a base register.
Note the seamless integration of the entirely New World tomato into the mixture. The reason is clear. It's umami as the CC has explained before.
Seasonings in the Thai conception are a little hard to give precise instructions for. The ingredients are precise enough but the quantities rely on "balance" — something that can only be learned via experience. You keep adding counterbalances until it all makes "sense". This sounds vague but it really is not. It's taking into account the variability in the ingredients that make up the mixture.
(Experienced eaters and makers of most South-Asian street food — Indian, Burmese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Filipino — will probably recognize what the CC is saying a lot easier.)
A very quick note about some of the techniques. You need a mortar and pestle which is easy enough. The long beans must be quite young because they are eaten raw. This is simply not possible where the CC lives so a quick blanching is in order. It's the only way to make them edible. Fidelity to the source can only go so far when practicality drives the truck crashing through the door.
Ingredients1 small raw papaya
8 long beans (cut into 2" lengths)
16-24 cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup dried shimp
1/3 cup peanuts (roasted)
2-4 Thai green chillies (sliced really thin)
2 cloves garlic
2-3 tbsp. palm sugar (substitute with brown sugar)
4 tbsp. nahm pla (fish sauce)
2 limes
Recipe
If your beans are young, ignore this. Otherwise blanch them for no more than 60 seconds in boiling water and put them in an ice-cold bath. Drain and set aside.
Make the sauce. The garlic needs to be finely chopped. Add the garlic, palm sugar, fish sauce and lime juice. Taste to make sure it has the right balance. You may need to add more of the palm sugar, fish sauce or lime juice.
Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves.
The papaya needs to be shredded into thin strips. Either a mandoline or a grater make quick work.
In a mortar and pestle, add the papaya, long beans, shrimp and roasted peanuts. Pound lightly to crush the ingredients just to release some juices and to break up the shrimp and peanuts a bit.
Toss everything together and serve at once.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Caldo de camarónes secos (Dried Shrimp Soup)
One of the great achievements of traditional food technology is drying various fish and meat products. This calls for a longer post which the CC promises but a highlight is "dried shrimp".
It may not be immediately obvious but shrimp come in a variety of sizes from the size of your smallest fingernail to the size of your palm. The various cookbooks frequently call Mexican dried shrimp as the "best" but the CC has found zero evidence for this culinary chauvinism. Your best bet is the Chinese markets where these babies are literally dirt cheap. A few dollars keeps the CC truckin' for a whole year. Just keep them in the fridge if you buy them packaged. (The CC buys from the bins mostly.) It's the humidity that spoils them. They are already "dried". In a fridge, they will last a year or two. In a freezer, they will last five years or more!
This recipe originally started in Mexico as a "bar recipe" whose goal is to keep you on target and "keep on truckin'". It's also insanely delicious and very nutritious so it's jumped the fence and become a regular home recipe for kids.
Yes, kids, it's so delicious that a "bar recipe" served for free with beer and booze has become a "kids' recipe". Such is the wonder of life.
The "keep on truckin'" portion comes from the absurd umami that is embedded in this recipe. You want more, more, more. The hangover recovery part comes from the fact that it is very high in protein and it's a very light broth. So you are getting rehydrated and getting a solid boost of nutrients while you are it.
The two dried peppers that go into it are not spicy at all. They have this intense complex smoky flavor which is unmistakable. Substitutions are not going to work. The tomato and the shrimp do all the heavy lifting of the umami with the synergistic effect.
The CC has a friend who hates shrimp and yet when the CC served him this he claimed that this was the best thing the CC had ever fed him. Seriously, dude?!?
And so it goes with things that you don't know about!
Ingredients
Salsa Roja
2 guajillo peppers
1 ancho pepper
3 small tomatoes
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic (unpeeled)
1 tsp cumin seeds
olive oil (or lard)
Caldo
1 cup dried shrimp
1 small onion
6 cloves garlic (peeled)
6 cups water
1 tbsp. epazote
sea salt
Serving
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
1 lime
Recipe
First make the salsa roja. Heat a dry skillet (comal). When hot, put the peppers on it and dry roast them till they are fragrant but not burnt. Remove. Open them up when cool and remove the seeds and the veins. Don't stress. We are going to purée these babies.
Add the unpeeled garlic and the onion to the dry skillet till they are brown in spots. Put the garlic in some aluminum foil and let it sit for a bit. Peel the skin off when they are cool.
Roast the cumin seeds.
If using fresh tomatoes, put on top of the skillet and dry roast till they are burnt in places and soft. Peel the skin. If using canned tomatoes (like the CC is right now in winter), skip this step.
Add everything for the salsa to the blender and blend to a very fine sauce. Pass through a fine sieve and set aside.
Heat the lard (or olive oil) in a pan. When shimmering and very hot, add the salsa and fry. Be careful. This has a tendency to give off a lot of splatter but this step is absolutely crucial to the taste. Stop when the salsa has cooked and no longer has a raw smell. Set aside.
In a separate pot, cook the dried shrimp, onion, garlic, and epazote with the water for about 20 minutes at a low simmer. The time depends on the size of the shrimp. No less than 15 and no more than 30.
There will be a lot of nasty froth that comes to the surface. Skim, baby, skim.
Blend the mixture really fine. An immersion blender works great here. Pass the mixture through a very fine sieve retaining the liquid and tossing the solids.
Combine the two liquids and bring to a rolling boil. The idea here is to emulsify whatever fat there is left in both liquids. It is a bar food after all but it's a tiny amount. Most of it has been skimmed away and if you wish, you can skim away more by heating a lower speed which will cause the fat and the broth to separate.
Serve hot with a topping of cilantro and a big squeeze of lime. The lime is non-negotiable. It's what brings the tangy soup to life at the last moment with that "hit me!" taste.
It may not be immediately obvious but shrimp come in a variety of sizes from the size of your smallest fingernail to the size of your palm. The various cookbooks frequently call Mexican dried shrimp as the "best" but the CC has found zero evidence for this culinary chauvinism. Your best bet is the Chinese markets where these babies are literally dirt cheap. A few dollars keeps the CC truckin' for a whole year. Just keep them in the fridge if you buy them packaged. (The CC buys from the bins mostly.) It's the humidity that spoils them. They are already "dried". In a fridge, they will last a year or two. In a freezer, they will last five years or more!
This recipe originally started in Mexico as a "bar recipe" whose goal is to keep you on target and "keep on truckin'". It's also insanely delicious and very nutritious so it's jumped the fence and become a regular home recipe for kids.
Yes, kids, it's so delicious that a "bar recipe" served for free with beer and booze has become a "kids' recipe". Such is the wonder of life.
The "keep on truckin'" portion comes from the absurd umami that is embedded in this recipe. You want more, more, more. The hangover recovery part comes from the fact that it is very high in protein and it's a very light broth. So you are getting rehydrated and getting a solid boost of nutrients while you are it.
The two dried peppers that go into it are not spicy at all. They have this intense complex smoky flavor which is unmistakable. Substitutions are not going to work. The tomato and the shrimp do all the heavy lifting of the umami with the synergistic effect.
The CC has a friend who hates shrimp and yet when the CC served him this he claimed that this was the best thing the CC had ever fed him. Seriously, dude?!?
And so it goes with things that you don't know about!
Ingredients
Salsa Roja
2 guajillo peppers
1 ancho pepper
3 small tomatoes
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic (unpeeled)
1 tsp cumin seeds
olive oil (or lard)
Caldo
1 cup dried shrimp
1 small onion
6 cloves garlic (peeled)
6 cups water
1 tbsp. epazote
sea salt
Serving
2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
1 lime
Recipe
First make the salsa roja. Heat a dry skillet (comal). When hot, put the peppers on it and dry roast them till they are fragrant but not burnt. Remove. Open them up when cool and remove the seeds and the veins. Don't stress. We are going to purée these babies.
Add the unpeeled garlic and the onion to the dry skillet till they are brown in spots. Put the garlic in some aluminum foil and let it sit for a bit. Peel the skin off when they are cool.
Roast the cumin seeds.
If using fresh tomatoes, put on top of the skillet and dry roast till they are burnt in places and soft. Peel the skin. If using canned tomatoes (like the CC is right now in winter), skip this step.
Add everything for the salsa to the blender and blend to a very fine sauce. Pass through a fine sieve and set aside.
Heat the lard (or olive oil) in a pan. When shimmering and very hot, add the salsa and fry. Be careful. This has a tendency to give off a lot of splatter but this step is absolutely crucial to the taste. Stop when the salsa has cooked and no longer has a raw smell. Set aside.
In a separate pot, cook the dried shrimp, onion, garlic, and epazote with the water for about 20 minutes at a low simmer. The time depends on the size of the shrimp. No less than 15 and no more than 30.
There will be a lot of nasty froth that comes to the surface. Skim, baby, skim.
Blend the mixture really fine. An immersion blender works great here. Pass the mixture through a very fine sieve retaining the liquid and tossing the solids.
Combine the two liquids and bring to a rolling boil. The idea here is to emulsify whatever fat there is left in both liquids. It is a bar food after all but it's a tiny amount. Most of it has been skimmed away and if you wish, you can skim away more by heating a lower speed which will cause the fat and the broth to separate.
Serve hot with a topping of cilantro and a big squeeze of lime. The lime is non-negotiable. It's what brings the tangy soup to life at the last moment with that "hit me!" taste.
Friday, November 2, 2012
What a Wonderfully Odd Fact!
Sometimes the best part of an article
is a throwaway sentence that illuminates so much.
And then local cooks started incorporating the concentrated flavors of the dried shrimp into their gumbo!
The process of sun-drying shrimp was introduced to Louisiana over a hundred years ago by Chinese and Filipino immigrants who saw the shrimp-rich region as an opportunity for export.How wonderfully amazing!
And then local cooks started incorporating the concentrated flavors of the dried shrimp into their gumbo!
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