Shrimp Wrapped in Pancetta and Sage

 For my weekday meals, I tend to fall into a monotonous rotation of sauteed chicken breasts and pork chops served with not very imaginative pan sauces.  It's not that I especially love these meals (although I have been known to throw together a darn good pan sauce), it's just that after a long day of work, the last thing I want to do is to struggle with a new recipe, so I stick to the familiar.  I'm always excited when I do go out on a limb and discover a new recipe like this one for shrimp wrapped in pancetta and sage that is simple enough for weeknights.  Thanks to my Manhattan stomping grounds, I do have the luxury of having a market between my office and my apartment that sells both very fresh shrimp and high-quality pancetta, so assuming you can find those two components of the ingredient list, this recipe is as easy as it gets.  It is also quite tasty with the shrimp and crispy pancetta creating somewhat of a high-end hot pocket, perfect for eating on the couch after a harrowing day. 

Shrimp Wrapped in Pancetta and Sage
Serves 2 to 3

Ingredients:

• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails left on
• pepper
• 1 bunch sage
• 1/4 lb pancetta, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Directions:

1. Lay the shrimp out on a cutting board.
2. Season the shrimp with pepper.  There is no need to salt the shrimp as the pancetta is very salty.
3. Place a sage leaf on top of each shrimp.
4. Wrap a slice of pancetta around each shrimp.
5. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet until just before smoking.
6. Gently place the shrimp in the skillet.  Cook without disturbing for 2 minutes then flip each shrimp using a spatula.  Cook the other side until the shrimp are pink and no longer translucent, another 1 to 2 minutes.  Remove the shrimp from the pan and serve immediately. 

Ground Pork with Shrimp Paste and Lemongrass

I'll be the first to admit that shrimp paste isn't for the squeamish.  Pungent—and not in a good way—and pasty, for lack of a better word, the ingredient made of ground fermented shrimp might scare away even the most adventurous foodies.  However, as any lover of Southeast Asian cuisine is aware, shrimp paste makes pretty much everything taste better.  Just take Thai curry or papaya salad: yup, you guessed it, shrimp paste is an active player in their deliciousness.  As much as I try, I can't quite live off of curry and papaya salad, so I'm always looking for new ways to use up some of the jar of shrimp paste in my fridge. This pork recipe, loosely adapted from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, was one of those attempts.  Typical of most Southeast Asian dishes, this one plays off of a contrast of flavors, with sweet, salty, and spicy well represented.  I still have half a jar of shrimp paste left, but I suspect I'll be purchasing more in no time.

Ground Pork with Shrimp Paste and Lemongrass
Serves 4

Ingredients:
3 tbsp peanut oil
3 dried Thai chiles
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 lemongrass stalks, trimmed, cut in thirds, and pounded with the flat side of a knife
1/2 pound ground pork
12 shrimp, peeled, deveined, and minced
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp shrimp paste, diluted in 1/4 cup warm water
1 tsp sesame seeds
2 Kirby cucumbers, thinly sliced

Directions:
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Add the chiles to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally until they are fragrant and blackened.
Add the garlic and lemongrass to the skillet and cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add the pork to the skillet.  Use the back of a wooden spoon to break the pork up as it cooks, and cook until the meat is no longer pink, about 3 minutes.
Stir in the shrimp, sugar, and shrimp paste and cook for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture caramelizes, turning a reddish brown.  If the pan dries out, add a tablespoon of water at a time.
Remove the mixture from the pan and serve immediately with rice, topped with sesame seeds and garnished with the cucumbers.

Shrimp & Grits, Momofuku Style

Having spent equal parts of my life in the Southeast and the Northeast, I was eager to make the recipe for shrimp and grits from the Momofuku cookbook.  Keeping the central components of the classic Southern dish intact while adding a small dash of New York edge, Momofuku's shrimp and grits achieves the right blend of North vs. South, something this blogger has been trying to achieve his whole confused life.  As difficult as it can sometimes be to tame New York 'tude with Southern charm, David Chang shows that it's pretty easy to do so on a plate. 

The hardest part about this shrimp and grits dish is sourcing the ingredients.  I had the good fortune of finding Anson Mills grits--the same South Carolina grits that Momofuku and seemingly every other higher-end restaurant in America with a grits dish on its menu use--at Formaggio Essex in New York's Essex Street Market.  It's worth it to search these grits out or splurge and order them online; they are the best grits out there, tasting as if the corn used to make them had been shucked just days before the grits were ground.

Aside from the grits, the only other ingredient you need to seek out is konbu, or dried kelp, that goes into the Bacon Dashi in which you boil the grits.  Fortunately, New York has no shortage of Japanese markets that carry konbu, but if you can't find it, you should be able to get by with boiling the grits in chicken broth. 

Ingredients and some splattering grits aside, this Momofuku's dish is easy to pull off.  Boil the grits, stir in a stick of butter (I didn't say this was healthy), cook the bacon, sautè the shrimp, poach some eggs, and stir it all together with a few splashes of soy sauce and some scallions and you have an excellent, North-meets-South-meets-Far-East meal.

Shrimp Rolls from Luke's Lobster

 

With great excitement, I discovered that Luke's Lobster, a lobster roll shack in the East Village known for serving one of Manhattan's least expensive lobster rolls, is opening a larger restaurant just a short walk south of my apartment.  It is rare that a restaurant that is both newsworthy and wallet-friendly opens on the Upper East Side, so I am eagerly counting down the days until Luke's arrival.  Nonetheless, Significant Eater and I could not resist a recent craving for buttery seafood served in a toasted hot dog bun, so we decided to make Luke's shrimp rolls at home, thanks to this recipe from New York magazine.  All the credit for the shrimp rolls goes to Significant Eater, who briefly earned the slightly more functional but no more lovable name of Significant Cook for making these beauties.  She had the great idea to top each roll with a dash of Old Bay Seasoning, which we are pretty sure is done at the restaurant but is omitted from the recipe.  For one night only, my studio turned into a seafood shack... well maybe not quite that big.      

Spaghetti with Creamy Tomato and Shrimp Sauce

 

For this recipe, I tweaked a Marcella Hazan recipe by substituting canned San Marzano tomatoes where she called for tomato paste.  Nonetheless, the recipe results in a creamy pink sauce that is full of shrimp flavor in every bite.  Don't skip the step to make the shrimp paste; cleaning your food processor after pureeing shrimp is not an enjoyable task, but the shrimp paste is essential to making the sauce taste like a shrimp sauce rather than just a creamy tomato sauce that happens to have a few shrimp scattered about.

Spaghetti  with Creamy Tomato and Shrimp Sauce
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb medium shrimp, shelled and de-veined
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes, crushed by hand
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 lb spaghetti
• 2 tbsp parsely, finely chopped

Directions:

1. Cut the shrimp in half lengthwise and set aside.
2. Heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the garlic and cook until it turns light gold.  
3. Add the wine and tomatoes to the pan and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.  Cook the tomato sauce, stirring occasionally, until it is thick and all of the ingredients are well-combined. about 30 minutes.  
4. Add the shrimp, salt, and pepper to the tomato sauce and bring the sauce to a gentle boil.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the shrimp are cooked through, about 2 minutes.  Reduce the heat to medium. 
5. Using a slotted spoon, remove 2/3 of the shrimp from the pan and puree them in a food processor.  Return the pureed shrimp to the pan and stir the sauce well to combine.  
6. Add the cream to the sauce and cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens, about 2 minutes.  Taste the sauce for salt and pepper.
7. Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti according to the package's directions.  Drain the pasta well and add it the tomato sauce.  Stir the pasta well to coat it with sauce.  Serve immediately, garnished with the chopped parsley.

Shrimp with Caramel Sauce

It's always nice when an ambitious-sounding meal can be created by simply using some leftover bits in the fridge. In this case, I simmered shrimp in some of the Vietnamese caramel that I had made several weeks ago for pork ribs. These shrimp are not nearly as sweet as the caramel sauce title may lead you to believe. While I do cut the cooking time from what is called for in Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese kitchen, you still need to cook the shrimp for longer than you think in order to allow the flavors of the sauce to penetrate the meat.

Shrimp Simmered in Caramel Sauce
Adapted from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp Vietnamese caramel sauce (recipe here)
• 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
• large pinch of black pepper
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• 1 scallion, green part only, thinly sliced
  

Directions:

1. In a small dutch oven, combine the shrimp, fish sauce, caramel, onion, and pepper. Bring to a rapid simmer over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp are the color of clay and the sauce is almost completely reduced, about 8 minutes.
2. Remove the pan from the heat and toss the shrimp in the oil. Garnish the shrimp with the scallion and serve with white rice.

Shrimp in Spicy Tamarind Sauce

Tonight's dinner was from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. The last time I made a sauce with tamarind pulp, it was cloyingly sweet, so I was reluctant to try it again. However, Nguyen's recipe for shrimp in tamarind sauce included sriracha and fish sauce, so I decided it might be worth the gamble to use up the tamarind pulp that had been sitting in my pantry. My decision paid off, as the dish was a nice balance of spicy, sour, and sweet. I served it with Nguyen's cabbage and egg stir-fry; the best I could do as an homage to St. Patrick.

I always appreciate a recipe where I learn a tip that I can carry with me. Nguyen suggests tossing the uncooked shrimp with a generous amount of salt and then immediately rinsing the salt off the shrimp prior to cooking. She says that this quick step will "return the flavor of the sea" to the shrimp. I can't believe I have never heard this before, as this pre-salting of the shrimp imparted a briny flavor, which really did remind me of the sea. This is a step that I will take whenever I cook shrimp, and I urge you to do so, too.