Fresh Tart

Make this. You will not be able to stop eating it.

Add cayenne pepper and the perfect amount of salt and you REALLY will not be able to stop eating it. Spoon it over polenta...and forget it. Gone.

Recipe for Saute of Tomatoes & Okra with Bacon at Dara & Co./Minnesota Monthly Magazine.

Sometimes - well, actually often - the shrimp I buy 'round these parts aren't all that great.  Wild-caught, not farmed.  Big, small, shell-on, shelled, pink, grey.  Brined, not brined.  Grilled, sauteed, baked, broiled.  Blah, blah, blah.  I've tried every iteration and vendor I can think of.  Meh.  I know, I know, I live in the middle of the country, give it up and eat what's delicious locally.  And mostly, I do.  But when shrimp are great, they're divine, dang it - plus they're light and nutritious and are the one seafood my whole family loves.

I've come up with a solution.  Unfortunately, it's not a tip on a great source of consistently firm, sweet shrimp.  Sorry.  And it definitely takes the healthiness profile down a notch or two - sorry about that too.  But the little buggers turn out deliciously, so here it is...

I fry them.

No batter, not really much breading - just a dusting of seasoned flour, a pass through hot oil, and voila - consistently tasty, lightly crispy shrimp.  What can I say?  Frying gives them back the texture that freezing and cross-country travel take away - a crisp plumpness, a thankfully far cry from the mealiness that other cooking techniques can't mask.  They're not as fabulous as the shrimp you'll find on the coasts, of course, but they're mighty good for Minnesota, and far less breaded/heavy than what you'll find in most restaurants.

I sauteed a pan of okra with tomatoes, onions, and bacon to have alongside (pictured above with polenta, which we did not have tonight - but that is some dinner, okra with polenta).  Good together, shrimp and okra, I look forward to having both someday in New Orleans...

Until then, here's how I do the shrimp: I buy them frozen in 1 lb. bags, since all shrimp that arrive in Minnesota have been frozen - I figure the store can thaw them, or I can thaw them...so I thaw them.  Plus, I've discovered that the thawed shrimp at the fish counter taste exactly the same as what I buy frozen.  So, I thaw them either in the refrigerator overnight or in a bowl of lightly salted water for an hour, then rinse and drain them in a colander and spread them out on paper towels for just a minute or so.  I don't pat them dry, but I don't want them to be soaking wet either.  While they drain, I put 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 tsp. of salt, and 1/2 tsp. of cayenne pepper in a large Ziploc bag.  Sometimes I add a little cornmeal (1/2 cup) if I'm in the mood.  I put the damp-not-wet shrimp in the bag, seal the bag, and shake it all around.  The shrimp will be lightly coated in flour.  I leave them in the bag while I heat a couple of cups of peanut or other high-heat (refined) oil in a wok over medium-high heat.  When the oil is hot, I then remove the shrimp, one at a time, from the bag (I give each shrimp a little shake as I pull it out of the bag to remove excess flour) and fry them, a few at a time, until nicely golden brown, turning once.  I drain the shrimp on paper towels and serve them while they're hot - on their own, tossed with stir-fried vegetables (I'd skip the corn meal if using Asian flavors), or dipped in cocktail sauce or aioli.  One pound of shrimp will feed 3-4 normal people (or only my husband, who grew up eating the fresh shrimp his grandmother fried on the beach in Jacksonville, Florida - can you imagine how good? - so he has a different sense of what a "serving" of fried shrimp is.  Like fried walleye to Minnesotans - just keep bringing it).  To prepare more than 1 lb. of shrimp, create separate bags of flour and use fresh oil for each pound.

I forget about crab cakes, which is too bad, given how easy they are to make and how delicious they are to eat.  I was prompted to remember them by the okra I picked up, I just love crab and okra together.  And I was prompted to pick up the okra, which I also tend to forget about, by the glut of very ripe cherry tomatoes I had sitting on the window sill (don't refrigerate tomatoes, ever, it makes them mealy), I just love tomatoes and okra together (particularly sauteed with bacon and sweet onions).

I had a piece of leftover corn in the cooler, so that went in too, for a pretty succotash-like pan of sauteed vegetables, just perfect alongside a crispy crab cake.

Recipes for crab cakes here, and for okra here.

My favorite vegetable these days is...okra.  It all started last year, when I discovered a recipe for a saute of okra with bacon, tomatoes, and sweet onion, as I hungrily perused the wonderful The Gift of Southern Cooking cookbook.  Being a Northerner and all, my only previous experience with okra was, well, slimy and uninteresting.  But I could see in the book's pic that a quick saute, allowing the okra to even crisp a bit, eliminated the slime factor and achieved deliciousness.  And it most definitely does, oh yes.  The crispy bacon makes the dish insanely good - you'll be glad to know that a little goes a long way.  I confess I didn't have the tomatoes last night, but the dish is absolutely delicious with just okra and onions.  Or even just okra, which is how I often prepare it to have alongside quick chicken gumbo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I would have happily tucked into a pan of okra and called it dinner, the rest of the family?  Um, no.  So I also sauteed some boneless thin-cut pork chops (sprinkled with thyme and salt first) and made a quick little pan sauce with a splash of chicken broth, finished with a tablespoon each of black cherry jam and Dijon mustard.  Polenta (grits) would have been the crowning touch, but no one else is a fan, so I boiled and drained a few red potatoes, lightly crushed them, and finished them with a very brief saute in a bit of butter, just on one side to add a little crispness.  Finished with a shower of parsley, they're tasty and pretty, in a jumbled, deconstructed, potato-y sort of way.  Even a little - dare I say - Springy?  Just a little, mind you, wouldn't want to go too far and get our hopes up or anything...

Do you have big Memorial Day plans? Not me, thank goodness. May has been a crazy-busy (fun!) bacchanal and I'm looking forward to a quiet, healthy reprieve. I took a long bike ride yesterday, and followed by the grilled fish and pile of vegetables I prepared last night, it put me in the right mood for a long weekend of dialing things back a bit, taking a deep breath, ahhh... No restaurants, parties, birthdays, travel, illness, entertaining - nothin'. Just a good book, my deck, exercise, flower planting, light meals, perhaps a movie, and a few good nights of sleep. Dang but that sounds nice! (I may very well not pull it off, but at least I'm going to try!)

Tonight I'm back to the wild-caught Key West shrimp I found at Whole Foods. Since it's just John and me, I'm going to boil them in their shells for a little peel-n-eat action. Served alongside a saute of tomatoes, okra, onions, and a little bacon, I'm going for a Southern-ish feel. Southern light, that is - no fry, no biscuits, no pie. Just plenty of yum!

Moderate it: check out this neat article in Health Magazine - beautiful, quick meal ideas based on farmer's market produce. They bill it as a "diet," but I'd call it an outline for healthy, delicious, every-day eating. Nice!

Fava beans. Love them. Hardly ever see them in stores 'round these parts, but scored some today at Lakewinds Natural Foods (lovely, lovely store) in Chanhassen. They're a major pain to deal with (shell, blanch, peel, then cook), but so worth it in the end - bright green, tender, nutty, sweet. Just...yum. Check out this great NPR story on the bitter-sweet beauty of favas, along with a gorgeous menu and recipes... Love to know that not only are they delicious, they're fabulously nutritious.

I should clarify that I haven't actually cooked them yet - it'll have to be later this weekend. Tonight, we just had pan-fried tilapia alongside tomatoes and okra sauteed with bacon, my new favorite vegetable dish (as I keep saying, sorry). Can't. Get. Enough. Although a pan full of sauteed heavenly morels and favas could put me over the top (morels and freshly-shelled peas were the kill, but morels and favas, oh my...).

Stay dry! Stay warm! (Yep, it's cold and wet again. Will probably even snow. Again. Yep. Grrrr...)

I'll confess, there were some pretty big whoops around the TV last night when the New York Giants pulled off their upset Super Bowl victory. John's from NYC, so you know, a no-brainer for him... My stepdaughter and I were just a teensy bit swayed by the Tom Brady Cuteness factor, but I was glad for such an exciting game and to see John and Nathan so jazzed. Homemade pizza and a win, sheesh, the Super Bowl was actually fun this year, I can't remember the last time I thought that! (As in, never?)

Tonight, it's all quiet again; in fact I dined solo, so (naturally) took the opportunity to whip up a few of my favorite tasties - particularly those that no one else in the fam particularly enjoys...

I've been flipping through a gorgeous new cookbook, The Gift of Southern Cooking, by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock, so was inspired to whip up some grits (I often make grits/polenta when I'm cooking just for myself) to enjoy alongside a simple saute of okra, tomatoes, onion, and a bit of bacon (recipe posted in comments, below). Deeeelicious. Keep this dish in mind this summer, when there are both just-picked okra and perfectly ripe tomatoes at the farmer's market. Fresh sweet corn would be a delicious addition. Or perhaps that's gilding the lily - you decide. The dish is completely successful in the winter as well - just choose grape cherry tomatoes (sweet even in the winter), and unblemished, plump okra (skip if they're shriveled).

This Yankee lurves me some okra. And grits. And cracklins, biscuits, fried chicken, braised greens, pork in every iteration, black-eyed peas, sweet iced tea, and most likely crayfish, too, if I had access. Yeeeeehaw!