DAY 2: Plumped Ginger-Caramel Shrimp and Dumbed-Down Rice

Never trust the cooking and prep times that you are given in a cookbook!

Plumped Ginger-Caramel Shrimp and Dumbed-down Rice

The shrimp calls for either peeled OR un-peeled shrimp. Expect to add 15 minutes to the recipe if you have to peel the pesky little critters. And I prefer to peel my own shrimp because it is 50% cheaper. I just can’t bring myself to spend $17/lb for prepared shrimp.

This recipe also had an interesting step of soaking the shrimp (By the size of them, I would call them prawns, but maybe it is a mid-west thing to call them shrimp.)---anyways, the first step is to soak the shrimp in a brine made of water, sea salt, chile powder, and sugar. I was skeptical, but after draining the bathing beauties, they did have a really pleasant smell and chile powder speckle to them. However, the amount of garlic and ginger in the sauce really overpowers the delicacy of the brine I think, but maybe the brine soak has some other shrimp-plumping power.

The recipe declared these were going to be delicious and they were not lying. A caramelized sauce of sugar, ginger, and garlic over lots of fat, juicy shrimp was spectacular. Overall, it was very easy to make with no special skills. My only complaint was there wasn’t enough sauce for the shrimp. I added a couple tablespoons of water during cooking to stretch it.

I did screw up the timing on the dumbed-down rice. The whole concept is to boil rice in A LOT of water, undercook it a bit, drain it, and let it sit for another 5 minutes before fluffing. But at their 10 minute cook time my long-grained white rice was still pretty crunchy. So the shrimp ended up having to sit for 6 minutes more before the rice was done. And dumbed-down rice is just boring white rice. I like a little more character in my rice. I am still, however, looking forward to the leftovers for lunch.

I also wanted to make the Ripe Tomato Stack with Pine Nuts and Mozzarella but upon getting home from my bike ride to the grocery store, I realized I had no currants. As I want to make everything authentically from the cookbook (at least once), the tomato stacks will have to wait. Instead we had a nice sugar snap pea, tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad on the side.

The biggest issue with this project is the constant grocery list making. We belong to a farm share that I have to pick up today and I will have to see if any of the ingredients we get matches any recipes before I head back to the grocery store.

3 recipes down in The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper.