Paisano: Jerked Shrimp

Being a Jerk



I spent two years in Eugene, Oregon — within 100 miles of the Pacific coast — and there was only one place in town where I could buy genuinely fresh fish, everywhere else it was frozen or previously frozen. But at least there was a place. I also spent three years in Nashua, New Hampshire, which was also within 100 miles of the coast. I never found fresh fish in Nashua. Then I spent two years in Sacramento, California. Yup, 100 miles from the coast and, yup, no fresh fish that I could find.

But here in Knoxville, Tennessee — almost 1000 miles from the nearest coast — I can buy fresh fish. Although the fish market does sell some frozen fish, mostly the seafood is fresh and straight from the Gulf of Mexico. They send a truck down to Mobile, Alabama twice a week to buy straight off the boats and haul it back up here. They opened a new store near me recently and, because I was teaching a class on cooking fish, I stopped in to see what they had.

Here in Knoxville, Tennessee — almost 1000 miles from the nearest coast — I can buy fresh fish.

I planned on concentrating on techniques so the menu I posted began with broiled tilapia with arugula pesto, then salmon in parchment, followed by poached snapper with a lemon cream sauce, and lastly grilled tuna with Romesco. But the store also had some gorgeous jumbo shrimp — so I bought a couple of pounds.

The menu posted for the class said nothing about shrimp, but in keeping with the philosophy of, "give them more than they expect" I always like to toss in an appetizer that I can feed the class almost immediately. In this case I decided to give them jerked shrimp as a starter. And while I was planning on jerking some shrimp I decided to make a jerk of, I mean for, myself.

Jerked Shrimp
Serves 4 as a main course.

1 1/2 lb jumbo shrimp — shelled
1 lg lime — juiced (2 - 3 tbsp)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp Herbes de Provence
Seasoning:
3 tbsp hot paprika
3 tbsp garlic powder
3 tsp ground allspice
1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less, depending on preferred spice level)
1 tbsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

Thoroughly mix all seasoning ingredients. You'll have more than you need, but it keeps well.

Place shrimp in a large zippered plastic bag. Add lime juice and 1 1/2 tablespoons of seasoning. Toss to mix and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and not more than 2.

Heat a skillet over medium high heat. Add butter and swirl to melt. Dump shrimp and juice into skillet and add Herbes de Provence. Cook about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Serve immediately.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | paisano | shrimp | seafood | main dish

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Paisano: Yogurt/Sumac Chicken

Strange Spice



I've no doubt given the impression that when I get together with the Paisano all we do is cook, but that's not true, sometimes we let other people cook.

I was attending a conference in San Francisco back in 1993 and gave Paisano a call in case he was going to be in the area. He was and invited me to a party. Microsoft happened to be having a party that same night for conference attendees, but I'd been to those parties before - free beer, wine, unbelievably bad pizza, and drunken geeks. It was an easy choice to make. The party was in Berkley but that and directions were all the old man would tell me.

One particular chicken dish caught my attention with a flavor I simply couldn't place

I'd rented a car because I was planning a side trip down to Monterrey over the weekend so around 7:00 I headed over the bridge to Berkley and after a couple of wrong turns I found the place.

Aside from a couple of other Euro-types like Paisano and myself, the rest of the guests (and the hosts) were middle-eastern. My friend knew I'd lived in Egypt for a year and thought I'd fit right in and, in fact, I did. There were people there from Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and I don’t know where else. They were all either students, grad students, or professors at UCB and the party was one in series that had been taking place every month or two for six years.

The food was awesome, but one particular chicken dish caught my attention with a flavor I simply couldn't place. So I started asking around and eventually found a young woman named FohzAn. It turned out the flavor was sumac, a deep red powder made from the sumac tree's berries. It's lemony in flavor, but instead of sour it seems slightly musty to me, which is what threw me. I also learned the chicken had been marinated in a mixture of yogurt, garlic, and sumac. I didn't get a recipe, though, and the dish eventually slipped my mind. Then I received a review copy of Zov: Recipes and Memories from the Heart by Zov Karamardian and flipping through it I found a recipe that took me back to that evening in Berkley. Zov's version is based on an Indian recipe, but it's close to what I remember, and note, I've tweaked the recipe a bit.

Sumac-Coated Chicken Kebab
Serves 4.
(Adpated from Zov: Recipes and Memories from the Heart)
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into 1"x1" pieces
1/2 cup yogurt
1/4 cup finely-chopped mint
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. paprika
2 Tbsp. sumac
3 cloves crushed garlic
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Thoroughly combine all ingredients in a zippered storage bag and marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours, turning and remixing 4 to 6 times while marinating.

Build a medium hot fire in your grill. Divide chicken pieces among 4 skewers. (Note: I can no longer use a grill, so I used my grill pan over medium-high heat.)

Grill kebabs for about 3 minutes per side over a fire or 5 minutes per side on a grill pan for a total of 12 or 20 minutes respectively. Serve garnished with mint chiffonade and lemon wedges. I served them on couscous with a salad on the side.

I'll be posting a review of Zov's book in the near future (after I've had time to check out a few more recipes), but I can tell you now that she has a passion for food and cooking that equals my own -- and her book is gorgeous.

Paisano is a fictional character created for my column on Gather.com and the events related here are a mixture of truth and fiction, The food, however, is real.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | seafood | shrimp | jerk

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Review: Hawaiian Yellowtailfrom Kona Blue

Unadulterated Delight



A week or so ago I got an email from someone commenting on SG and wondering if I was interested in receiving some free fish: "I’d be happy to send you Kona Kampachi and invite you to prepare it any way you like. If you’d like to share about the fish with your readers, great, but if not, don’t worry about it – it’s completely up to you." I happen to be a great believer in getting free stuff I'm interested in with no strings attached, so after checking out Kona Blue's Web site I told her to send it along. I'd try it and might or might not write about it and I might or might not be positive about the experience.

I'm here to say, "Wow!"

Yesterday (as I write this) I received a large, heavy package from the company. I was expecting it having received notification that it had been picked up by Fed-Ex two days earlier. I opened the box and found a huge plastic bag. I opened the bag and found an aluminized thermal blanket. I opened the blanket and found about a dozen frozen freezer packs. I dug through them and found a smaller plastic bag. I opened it and found two fresh (not frozen) fillets weighing about a pound each wrapped in plastic. I stuck my nose in the bag and sniffed — pure ocean. Supper had arrived.

Kona Blue raises Hawaiian Yellowtail (also known as Almaco Jack and trademarked as Kona Kampachi) commercially in deep-water farms near Hawaii. The company claims their methods are sustainable and minimize environmental impact. I read about this type of ocean farming several years ago and from what I recall, if done properly it can meet both claims.

The fish I received had been harvested on Sunday. It then went into an iced brine which killed it. On Tuesday it was gutted, cleaned, and shipped. Kona only harvests enough fish at a time to serve that week's orders so the fish is always as fresh as they can make it, but most of their sales are wholesale and for whole fish to restaurants. The company's retail presence is limited.

It's not cheap. The two fillets I received retail for $17.00 each and shipping is another $33.00. Nevertheless, I could have easily fed six for that $67.00, about the cost of a good steak dinner at home. And as I said above, "Wow!" This was certainly in the top 10 of fish I've ever eaten. They say it's sushi grade so I tried a bit raw and it certainly is. But I elected to cook it.

I cut a fillet into thirds and brushed two of the thirds with olive oil, sprinkled sweet Spanish paprika on them along with a bit of salt, and then broiled it until barely cooked through. It was like eating butter. My plan had been to eat only one third and use the other cooked third in a salad for lunch today. Not possible. The fish was just too good and I ate it last night as well. I still have the third third and will do something with it this evening.

I also understand why the company was so laissez faire about whether I wrote them up or not. They knew that no real foodie could resist singing the praises of this fish once he or she had tasted it. It really gripes me to be so predictable, and I wish I could think of something negative to say to at least give the appearance objectivity, but the truth is saying something negative wouldn't be objective. The fish is just that good.

Hmmm, perhaps I should have held out for a press junket to Hawaii...

Technorati: Food | review | kevin d weeks | seriously good | seafood | hawaiian yellowtail | Kona+Kampachi

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Clam Chowder

It's Chowdah, Baby



If you've read The Once and Future King by T.H. White, a retelling of the Authurian legend, you may recall the Questing Beast. In White's tale the beast was something quested after, not something that went on quests. But I am culinary Questing Beast and in my case I am the pursuer and not the pursued.

In 1995 I began crisscrossing the country, coast-to-coast, spending time in the Pacific Northwest, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and central California. As a long-time fan of clam chowder I thought these serendipitous, job-related journeys to the coasts would be an exceptional opportunity to find the perfect clam chowder. Specifically, a perfect New England Clam Chowder was the dish I avidly sought.

I failed.

The fragrant aromas of clam juice and milk mingling together still evoke not only the dish itself but the whole experience...

In Serious Pig, John Thorne writes:

"That time lingers in my mind as 'the chowder summer.' It was the start of my life-long love affair with the dish. The fragrant aromas of clam juice and milk mingling together still evoke not only the dish itself but the whole experience: the driftwood I had carried up from the beach and sawn myself, now crackling in the fireplace; the chowder full of clams I had just dug, cleaned, and prepared, and potatoes I had carried back three miles from the store, heating in the big battered pot on the propane stove."

I sought a "chowder summer" or fall, winter, spring. I knew what the perfect chowder would be like and I thought it could be found. Alas, no. The best chowder in Oregon was far too thick. The best in New England was far too thin. And all the others I tried failed in both flavor and consistency. Nevertheless, I learned a lot about what I sought in the quest itself.

The perfect clam chowder, in my mind, tastes more of clams than dairy. It has distinctive notes of pork, but these notes are background. It should be distinctively salty — recalling the sea. Freshly ground black pepper should enliven the flavor. The potatoes should contribute a slightly sweet note and a clear connection to the land. The consistency should about the same as heavy cream (not gravy), but with a less fatty mouth feel.

I still haven’t found perfection, but I come closer. For instance, someone recommended thickening the chowder with ground oyster crackers. Brilliant! The ground crackers add body without changing the consistency (it's still a soup instead of gravy, which using a roux gives you). Bacon (with it's slightly smoky component) is better than fat back. Use lots of clam juice. And choose small waxy potatoes for a slightly sweet note and something to actually chew on.

So here's what I made most recently:

New England Clam Chowder
Serves 6.

5 lb. mahogany clams, scrubbed
2 cups potatoes cut into 1/2" cubes and cooked al dente
4 strips lightly-smoked bacon
1 sm. onion, diced
2 8 oz. jars clam juice
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp. anchovy paste
1 1/2 cups ground oyster crackers (or saltines), ground to powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook bacon in a soup pot over medium heat until slightly crisp. Drain bacon on paper towels. Roughly chop.

Cook onions in bacon grease until they begin to brown. Add one jar of clam juice and deglaze pot. Add the rest of the clam juice, cream, milk, and anchovy paste. Bring to a simmer.

Add clams and simmer until they open. Remove clams from broth with a slotted spoon and extract meat.

Add potatoes to pot and simmer for five minutes to warm through. Add clams, ground crackers, and salt and pepper and cook five minutes more. Serve.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | soup | chowder| seafood | clams

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Barbequed Shrimp

Misnomer



If there ever was a bad idea it would be barbequing shrimp. Shrimp are a delicate meat that will overcook in 15 seconds. Barbeque, on the other hand, is the application of smoke and low heat for a long time. The closest you could get to actually barbequing shrimp is blowing cigar smoke at them for an hour or two — which probably wouldn't taste particularly good and would be boring. Nevertheless, Cajun barbequed shrimp are delicious: they just aren't really barbequed.

They're also Mediterranean.

When I tell folks I'm a chef the standard question is, "What's your favorite food?" To which my answer is, "Which is your favorite child?" I love food in general, but what they're really asking is what do I cook at home. To that my answer is Mediterranean cuisine, which elicits the next query among folks who know food, "What do you call Mediterranean?"

I then wax rhapsodic about rosemary and thyme, pasta and fish, olive oil and lemon. I talk about how the common ingredients are treated differently on the northern (European) and southern (African) coasts. And if the questioner is perspicacious I end up in New Orleans and the Caribbean.

If you think about it these cuisines bear a great resemblance to (and were strongly influenced by) southern European and African cuisines. Although Caribbean and Cajun/Creole food tends to include the most distinctive New World ingredient, capsicum peppers, the other ingredients and the cooking techniques definitely show the Old World roots.

So barbequed shrimp, which are sautéed in butter with onions, peppers, and seasoned with thyme, garlic, and assorted ground peppers are, to my mind, essentially Mediterranean in character. And they're certainly not barbequed.

I shelled and seasoned some shrimp with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning and some dried thyme and let them sit for about an hour. Next I sautéed the shrimp until not-quite done in a lot of butter and spooned them out onto a plate, leaving the butter behind.

Diced onions and green bell peppers went into the pan until translucent, then a clove of minced garlic. I finished the dish by adding a bit of white wine and some clam juice which I reduced a bit before stirring in a tad of arrowroot for thickening and then returning the shrimp to finish cooking along with a healthy dash of Tobasco sauce..

I served the shrimp on a bed of Basmati rice spiked with more of the Chachere seasoning, Very good — and spicy.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | barbequed shrimp | shrimp | seafood | cajun-creole

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Shrimp Curry

Mellow Yellow



I don't know why I don't cook with curry powder more often. I'm love the flavor and it's a surprisingly flexible seasoning that can even work in desserts. Perhaps it's because the odor can linger for a day or two and smells far better in the evening when you're hungry than in the morning when you've just gotten up. Or perhaps it's because anytime you use it it's an in-your-face flavor. But for whatever reason it's not a regular component of my cooking.

Last weekend I had lunch with my parents and my mother made a quick shrimp and crab curry that I really liked. In fact, it was so quick and easy I had to make it myself a few days later just to fix the idea in my mind.

You could serve this with the usual rice, but my mother served it in puff pastry shells and they contributed a lot to the flavor and added a touch of elegance to the meal.

Shrimp Curry
Serves 4.

1/2 lb cooked salad shrimp
1/2 c canned crab
1/2 ea md. onion, minced
2 c coconut milk
4 ea scallions, cut into short lengths
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp butter
1/2 ea lemon, juiced
salt to taste
Madras curry powder to taste

Cook four puff pastry shells according to package.

Melt butter in a sauce pan over medium low heat, add onion and cook until translucent. Add flour and about a tablespoon of curry powder and cook, stirring constantly, for about three minutes. Add coconut milk and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens. Add lemon juice, shrimp, crab, some of the crab juice, about half the scallions, and salt. Taste and adjust seasonings. Spoon into pastry shells and garnish with remaining scallions.

There's no need to use lump crab, it's best if the crab is evenly distributed throughout more as a flavoring than an ingredient.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin weeks | seriously good | shrimp | currry | shrimp+curry | seafood

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Shrimp & Grits

Low-country Luscious



The group I refer to as my "cooking buddies" has been getting together every other year since 1994 for a Cooks' Bash. The first was held in Charleston, South Carolina where I had my first sushi and, to everyone's great amusement, wasabi. I still haven't lived down The Wasabi Event.

In addition to sushi, I had the pleasure of introducing a friend from the Pacific Northwest to a Southern breakfast of eggs, grits, country ham, and biscuits. One night we had a Low Country clambake which mostly involved oysters and Frogmort Stew. The traditional cuisine is similar to Creole cooking, heavy on fish, rice, potent spices, and the Trinity of onion, celery, and bell pepper.

I had the pleasure of introducing a friend from the Pacific Northwest to a Southern breakfast of eggs, grits, country ham, and biscuits.

Shrimp plays a particularly big roll, with Charleston Receipts offering dishes such as Breakfast Shrimp, half a dozen shrimp pies, and Shrimp Stuffed in Bell Peppers. Oddly enough, the shrimp dish I think of as most typically Low Country doesn't appear: Shrimp and Grits. This causes me to wonder if, despite the dish's fame, it's a relatively recent invention.

There's a restaurant here in Knoxville, Chesapeake's, that sometimes offers a particularly good version as a special. I've been meaning to make it myself for quite awhile, but it wasn't until last week, when the local paper posted a recipe that looked good, that I finally got around to doing so. The published recipe is by Louis Osteen and he serves it at Louis's at Pawleys on Pawleys Island. I tweaked the recipe to meet my needs, but also because the amount of liquid called for seemed excessive and would have more resembled a thick shrimp soup than shrimp smothered in a sauce.

I also, completely ignored the recipe for grits because it called for quick grits, but again required too much liquid. I suspect these are typos in the recipe. Instead, I did use quick grits, but I followed the package directions to make 2 cups and added about 3 tablespoons of butter.

Shrimp for Shrimp & Grits
Adapted from the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Serves 4.

1 lb medium shrimp — peeled
3 tbsp butter
4 slices smoked bacon
2/3 c chopped onions
1/4 c chopped celery
1/4 c chopped green bell pepper
2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp dried thyme or 1 sprig fresh
1 bay leaf
1/3 c white wine or vermouth
3 tbsp flour
2 c clam juice (shrimp stock is better if you have it)
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 c heavy cream
hot sauce to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Make the grits.

In a non stick skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat and cook shrimp for about 2 minutes per side. Set aside, the shrimp should be slightly under-cooked.

In a large sauté pan cook the bacon until crisp over medium heat. Drain bacon but reserve grease in pan. Add onions, celery, and pepper and sau té until softened. Add garlic, thyme, and bay and cook 1 minute more. Increase heat to high, add white wine, and cook until evaporated. Reduce heat to medium and sprinkle with flour, mix thoroughly and cook, stirring frequently with a spatula for 3 minutes and scraping the bottom to prevent burning. Add clam juice and tomato paste and whisk vigorously to avoid lumps. Bring to a simmer and stir in cream. Add salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened. Add shrimp and cook another 2 minutes. Serve spooned over grits.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin weeks | seriously good | shrimp and grits | shrimp | seafood | low country

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