Shrimp Creole

Adapted from the New Orleans Cookbook by Rima and Richard Collins

Serves 4

I have been making this recipe forever. One Saturday night in Alexandria, Polly and Bill were coming over for dinner, and on the spur of the moment as I leaving work on Friday afternoon, I asked Sandra if she wanted to join us since Tom was out of town. She had never been to my house for dinner and had certainly never met Polly and Bill. She said yes. So on Saturday night Sandra came to dinner bearing a plate of beautiful home-made iced sugar cookies. (They were really beautiful AND delicious.) On Monday morning at work she told everyone the story of my serving the Shrimp Creole and her taking four small bites of it and looking up to see that the rest of us HAD FINISHED and were waiting for her! The story became part of our legend, and I never make this recipe without thinking about that night. Sandra and I have had so many good times since then - some just as funny.

What is great about this recipe – in addition to how good it is – is that you can make the sauce a day ahead of time (without putting the shrimp in), and it actually improves in flavor. In fact, it's best if you make the sauce a day ahead, but if you don't have the time to do it, don't let that deter you. It will still be good, and any leftovers - if you're lucky enough to have them - will be fabulous. I have been known - more than once - to eat them for breakfast. Don’t be alarmed by the number of ingredients. In spite of that, it's really easy (especially if you do a mise en place), and most of the work is done ahead, so it's great company dish.

Peggy, who is from Charleston so she should know, never deveins her shrimp by cutting it down the back. Actually, she doesn't bother deveining it at all, so I have adopted this practice. However, if you absolutely MUST devein it, you can usually just pull it right out where the head has been severed (sorry, maybe you didn't know about this). Obviously, this would be the end opposite the tail. * Also, the original recipe calls for simmering the shrimp in the sauce for 20 minutes, and Peggy would never in a million years let the shrimp simmer for 20 minutes. She would consider it absolute heresy. But I once took a cooking class with Bruce Beck, who is a master at cooking fish, and he said that the two different ways produce different results - the 20 minutes' simmering one flavors the sauce a little differently. So that's why it's worth trying both ways.

Check out the recipe for Crabmeat Mandeville, which is a good starter with this dish. The Baked Banana Splits in Orange Butterscotch Sauce is a good dessert.

For the Roux:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup light vegetable oil (I use grapeseed)

Mise en Place

Bowl 1:
2 bunches scallions, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons parsley, minced

Bowl 2:
1 tablespoon sliced chives
1/4 teaspoon mace
4 bay leaves
¼ teaspoon dried basil
6 whole allspice
2 whole cloves
2 pounds large shelled shrimp
2 teaspoons salt
75 grinds black pepper
½ teaspoon cayenne
¼ teaspoon chili powder

4 teaspoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons red wine
1 8-oz can tomato sauce 1 14.5 pound can tomatoes (recipe calls for 1 pound, but this is the size I always find)

Put 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 2/3 light vegetable oil in a skillet. I use a well-seasoned black iron skillet. Turn the heat on to medium, and cook stirring constantly until the roux you are making turns the color of rich peanut butter. Count on this taking about 20 minutes. Do it even more slowly - which means at a lower heat - until you get the hang of it. If the roux burns, meaning you have little black specks in it, you have to throw it out and start over.

Once the roux is made, in it over medium heat cook the contents of Bowl 1: scallions, celery, green pepper, onion, garlic, and parsley. This doesn't actually brown; you will start to get a very distinctive - and good - smell. Cook it about 4 to 5 minutes.

At this point, I carefully transfer the contents of the skillet to a Le Creuset pot - about 5 quarts in size. You can probably do the whole thing in a pot like this - from start (roux) to finish, but I have just gotten into the habit of doing the roux in my black iron skillet so that's what I do. Heat the mixture back up to where it was before, and add the tomato sauce, tomatoes, red wine, lemon juice and contents of Bowl 2: chives, bay leaves, and rest of the spices. Bring to a boil.

Add 2 cups water (do NOT substitute stock). Boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 45 minutes. You can cook it ahead to this point - even the day before you plan to serve it - and it will actually improve in flavor. Bring back to a boil before resuming the recipe.

Add the shelled shrimp, bring back to a boil. Clap a cover on the pot, and immediately reduce the heat. *The original recipe calls for simmering it at this point for 20 minutes; however, you can cook it only until the shrimp is just cooked, about 6 minutes. Whichever way you choose to do it, at the end of the cooking time you pick, remove the pot from the heat. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Serve over a small amount of dry boiled white rice. It's shrimp served over some rice, not rice with a shrimp sauce on it.