I Have To Rinse Them Off First: Spicy Grilled Shrimp and Grilled Asparagus

Call this one Salty Grilled Shrimp, because that's what I ended up with. The recipe itself is close to foolproof. The marinade (lemon juice, olive oil, paprika, cayenne, a mashed clove of garlic and a tablespoon of salt) could probably be used with any kind of meat or veggie, and it's really fast.

However, I used a little less shrimp than Bittman recommends, which wouldn't be a problem if I hadn't used the entire tablespoon of salt. But I forgot to adjust, and the shrimp were so incredibly salty that my brother would only take seconds after rinsing his shrimp off. Which probably didn't work anyway.

Basically, this recipe is golden, especially served with a little salad and some lemon wedges. It tastes like spring.

Also, there was grilled asparagus, which can also be done roasted or broiled, and are delicious no matter what. And in season! Don't sleep on them. Check out the links below for up to date info on what's at the Greenmarket.

Lucy's Greenmarket Report
Greenmarket Report blog

Feast for a Knucklehead: The Simplest Paella, Seared Baby Bok Choy with Bacon Vinaigrette, and Roasted Asparagus

Sunday was the one week anniversary of my least favorite brother Jonathan's 26th birthday. In honor of this occasion, I told him I'd make him and his friends whatever he wanted (so long as it was in How To Cook Everything, of course). So that's how we ended up with Paella, a deceptively easy dish that takes much less time than everyone thinks. Since it was a special occasion, I replaced half the shrimp with squid and added some chorizo to the recipe for good measure. Check it out:


Basically, it works like this: saute some onions in olive oil, add chorizo if you're using it, and then add the rice (preferably paella rice, though I used arborio at Bittman's suggestion and it worked) and cook it for a minute until it looks "shiny." At this point you add the stock that's been heating up with saffron in it (if you're me, you add the saffron with the rice instead of letting it heat with the broth, resulting in a still very tasty but less orange dish), stir in the shrimp and squid, and throw it in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.


It actually took more like 30 minutes, but my oven is trife). When the rice is cooked through and the top is getting a nice brown layer, you're good. This was completely delicious and the chorizo was predictably a great call.

For veggies, we had two dishes. Roasted Asparagus is something I've made 100 times before, and it turns out is also in HTCE. I burnt them a little. They were still good, in fact I think they were better than usual. That's one veggie that does real well under high heat. I think next time I may even try the broiler (the recipe was for Grilled, Broiled, or Roasted Asparagus so there's a lot of room for interpretation as long as the heat is high).


But that was overshadowed, I'm afraid. It's not that it wasn't good (which it was) and it's not that I forgot the lemon wedges Bittman recommends (which I did). It's just that the other vegetable dish last night had bacon in it. So you see, it wasn't really fair. Seared Baby Bok Choy with Bacon Vinaigrette is simpy unfuckwithable, and not just because of the bacon. You boil and shock baby bok choy, cut it in half, and then cook it cut side down, so it gets just a bit charred.


It's a really interesting flavor, one I didn't think would work at all, but oh how it did. The bacon vinaigrette is just, you cook some chopped up bacon (about 6 oz, I used less) deglaze with some sherry vinegar, salt and pepper, and then whisk in some olive oil. Pour that on top of the baby bok choy and you have a serious side dish. For those of you who don't like to cook with bacon, there's an alternate recipe with a chili vinaigrette that also looks killer.


I served it all with a salad, not from the book. Our guests were Sean, Eva, and Mike, who it should be noted really loves a good, creamy rice and a cool, icy glass of red wine. I expect all of your comments below. Diana, you need to try harder. Happy Birthday big guy.

Oh! And for dessert I broiled some nectarines. The were so SO good. They didn't even need the ice cream, though it certainly didn't hurt.


One thing that's so great about roasting or grilling fruit is that it doesn't even have to be that great quality fruit. The nectarines were hard as rocks going in, but in the broiler they became these super sweet, sorta tart warm soft charred flavor bombs. I think it was Sean who said it was like pie, without the pie. Awesome.

(just kidding Diana, I owe you one, hope you're feeling better)

Gaff Factory: Shrimp Jambalaya and Broiled Pineapple

We weren't five minutes into cooking, and Mom was already worried about how she'd be portrayed on the internet. "Are you going to write on your blog that this was my fault?" See, the Jambalaya recipe calls for uncooked shrimp, but my mom grabbed the bag of cooked shrimp in the freezer aisle instead. It's a common mistake, and I blame not my mother but the companies that make the packaging so hard to distinguish. These packages need to say "RAW" or "COOKED" in bigger letters than they say shrimp. Making one label blue and the other red does not clear anything up. Get it together, seafood distributors of America. Luckily there were so many more goofs to be made during this meal, precooked shrimp was the least of our troubles. Surely it was not enough to derail our meal.


Family dinner! "I've been thinking of making the jambalaya from the book," Mom said when she called me at work. So here was my first chance to take the project on the road, to a whole new (and extremely well lit) kitchen. I came over after work and we got down to business. It's always fun to cook at my parents' place, because they have a dishwasher, the aforementioned lighting, a really nice stereo in the kitchen, basically they've just got it all figured out. And the company's not half bad either. The snacks provided while cooking (pictured below) are also far superior to those in our usual digs.


In a perfect world, the recipe works something like this: heat up some oil in a large skillet or pot, throw in diced onions and red peppers and let those brown. Then you add the rice, thyme, cayenne (Mom didn't have any so we used chili powder, which did the trick) and garlic. Then you add some canned tomatoes, and let that go for another few minutes. Then, you add the stock, and lower the heat a bit. This was where gaff number two came up, which I will take responsibility for (though I really blame a certain high quality supermarket in Red Hook, BK).


Not satisfied with the kosher salt I'd usually use to season such a mixture, I dug out a disposable plastic sea salt grinder from said Red Hook market. Somehow, my fervent grinding twisted the whole top off of the container, and about 1/3 cup of very coarse salt tumbled right into the pan. Kind of not good. I fished out as much as I could, and we decided to dilute with more water and more rice, a cup and a cup and a half at a time (respectively). I think we ended up adding 4-5 more cups of water than the recipe called for. It still tasted a little salty, but not as bad as it had before. So, you let the rice and stock bubble away for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, uncovered (surprising, right?) until there's just a small amount of stock left. At that point, you add the shrimp. We didn't, because our shrimp was already cooked. What we did was let the rice absorb the rest of the stock, and then stir in the shrimp after we'd taken it off the heat. This way we figured they wouldn't get all rubbery, just warmed through. Then we chopped up the parsley, which (gaff #3) we then forgot to actually add to the dish. Which is fine, because as he reminded us during dinner, Jonathan HATES parsley. He was pretty offended we'd thought of putting it in at all.


Anyway, all in all, it was pretty delicious. Yeah, it might have been richer without all the extra rice and water, and it could have been shrimpier if the little guys had actually cooked in the pot instead of just warming up in it. But it was pretty delicious overall, Reva and Steve kept the wine flowing, and, you know, there's something about a meal with your family that you can't get anywhere else. Next week, Mom wants to make pizza, so we'll see how that goes. I can say this: I will be sticking with regular salt (seriously, they don't have any of that sea salt left anyway).


Oh, and for dessert, we broiled some pineapple. Ever had grilled pineapple? Same idea: just stick it in the broiler until it gets nice and charred. It's a fruit that's just totally unleashed when you get a nice char on it. Brush it wish some vegetable oil before you cook it. I never thought to do it under the broiler but I certainly will be doing it again.