It was a hot, oppressive evening, full of ominous portents. An hour or so before we were to cook dinner, our kitchen was invaded by a hundred or more half-inch winged ants. Later, as we began, the largest thunderstorm that I’ve seen in Vancouver rolled in, flashing lightning wildly and bringing a sudden torrential rain. It was as if something was trying to warn me, to prevent me from making a terrible mistake…
I’ve never got on with shrimp. Not to beat about the bush, they’re disgusting. They’re the insects of the sea with their skinny, draggy little legs and their segmented carapaces and their gross tails. I don’t go around sauteing beetles and therefore I don’t do it to shrimp either. However I have noticed over the years that they are frequently the base for some amazingly delicious-sounding sauces, and when I found a recipe in my new favourite magazine (Chile Pepper, thanks Rob!) I had to try it.
The recipe in question was for habanero and garlic shrimp in a lime and white wine sauce. I couldn’t resist the habaneros. I absolutely live for spicy food and this would be my first time preparing anything myself using the habanero, one of the hottest peppers in the world (the hottest is the Naga Jolokia, or “ghost pepper”, originally from India). The great thing about habaneros is that apart from being ludicrously hot, they also have an amazing appearance and of course taste. They are so potent though that you’re supposed to wear gloves when chopping them.
So then, to the shrimp. Ugh. To save time, and reduce hands-on time with the horrible things I was able to find some frozen peeled and de-veined shrimp on sale at Safeway this week. They look pretty damn revolting when they’re raw!
Finally time to cook. Let’s follow the recipe here… “heat oil on a high heat”. OK… wow it’s smoking already. Alright, throw the shrimp in, cook for a minute, now the garlic and chopped habanero… interesting, I appear not to be able to breathe. Excellent. At this point Louise ran for her life (literally, she later claimed) as the kitchen filled with pure capsaicin fumes and I was left to battle on alone. After another minute I added the wine.
Now, what was supposed to happen here is that the wine and (in a minute or two) the lime juice combine to make a nice base, and you’re supposed to reduce it and end up with presumably a fairly thick tasty sauce. What ACTUALLY happened is that the wine instantly flash-boiled away in a furious cloud of steam and capsaicin. I guess the pan was just way too hot. I’m not used to cooking at such a high heat and I took the recipe’s instructions literally, turning the dial right around to “HI”. I now assume that either this is a general no-no or my particular stove is capable of unnaturally high temperatures. Either way, next time I’m sticking to the “8” setting on the dial that gives me such good results when stir-frying chicken.
After setting my teeth and grimly carrying on, throwing in some cilantro and the lime juice and tossing everything together one last time, I was fairly amazed to find that the shrimp was in fact good when it came out. Not just good actually, sort of holyfuckingshit good. It turned out incredibly tasty with a really nice kick. Next time, when I get the sauce right, it should be even better.
So even though the signs were troubling and doom-laden, before and during, the outcome was mostly positive. Apologies, thanks and love to my amazing and ever-patient wife Louise for putting up with my mad scientist kitchen experiments… next time I’ll supply a gas mask for the fumes!
Oh and I thought the Vista weather gadget thunderstorm pic was cool so I saved it for posterity. Who knows when I’ll see it again.
#1 by justin on July 27th, 2009 - 8:41 am
Cooking is fun. You learn from your mistakes; at least the ones that don’t give you fatal food poisoning.