Big Easy on the Mountaintop

You know how when you learn a new word, all of a sudden it seems you hear that word every time you turn around.  I had this experience this weekend with a recipe, or rather, with a dish.

On a food blogger page that I'm a part of, someone posed the question of taking the Ruth's Chris recipe for New Orleans BBQ shrimp and turning it into a cream-based pasta sauce.  She asked for advice, opinions, batted around some ideas of other ingredients to add, et cetera. I've read this Ruth's Chris recipe before but haven't gotten around to making it myself.  It looks and sounds awesome so I need to just quit thinking about it and make it happen.  

So, this past weekend I took my little Wunderkind to visit my sister up in Asheville.  It's that time of year again, so we were making a trip to the apple orchard.  (Now I've got apples up to my ears and need to start up all the apple recipes.) My sister says to me on the evening that we arrived, "Hey I was going to make this for dinner.  I made it not long ago when we had a friend over and he went crazy over it."  She hands me a recipe for New Orleans BBQ Shrimp.  To quote Shatner in Airplane II, "irony can be pretty ironic sometimes."  Now it seems this shrimp recipe is really making the rounds and I'm running into it everywhere!

So, Katherine's version was, in a word, delicious.  If you aren't familiar, the shrimp is left in the shell and covered in this New Orleans style sauce and baked.  Since everyone at the table peels their own shrimp, this makes life really easy on the cook. It's loaded with spices and herbs and creates a fantastic sauce.  So make sure you have a good crusty loaf of bread and sop that stuff up like a starving Frenchman. Didn't expect to be transported from the mountains to New Orleans! Take a look at how beautiful this turned out...

Just gorgeous and tasted divine.  I'm not sure exactly which recipe it was that Katherine used, but the Ruth's Chris recipe is posted below, if you want to give it a try.  This would be a great dish to serve to a crowd at the beach; a nice alternative to the ubiquitous Frogmore Stew. 

Ruth's Chris New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp

Ingredients:
-Makes 4 servings
-20 large (16/20) shrimp, peeled and deveined
-1 ounce canola oil
-1 tablespoon plus 5 teaspoons green onions, chopped
-2 ounces dry white wine
-1 teaspoon fresh chopped garlic
-4 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
-1 teaspoon Tabasco
-1/2 teaspoon cayenne
-1/2 teaspoon paprika
-8 ounces (2 sticks) salted butter

Directions:
Place a large cast iron skillet on a burner and heat over high heat. Add oil and cook shrimp until they are just done. It's best to prepare shrimp in batches if you do not have large skillet. Remove shrimp and set aside on a large platter.

Add green onions to the oil in the skillet and cook for 1 minute. Add white wine and let simmer until it is reduced by half.

When the wine is reduced by half, add chopped garlic, Worcestershire, Tabasco. cayenne pepper and paprika. Shake the pan well and cook for 1 minute. Reduce the heat to low.

Cut butter into small chunks with the knife and slowly add into pan, shaking fast to melt butter.

Continue to add butter and shake until all butter is melted. Add shrimp back to pan and toss well to coat shrimp with butter and seasonings and to heat the shrimp. Place shrimp on four plates and enjoy.