Weekly Dish

My dad has always reveled in the curiosity of little ones. As I was growing up, the firstborn, I think he was always terrifying my mom by tossing me higher and higher in the air, spinning me faster and faster as he swung me in circles, coaxing me into trying all manner of new things. Now that I’ve given him his first grandchild, I have a feeling that he will turn his daredevilish attentions on my daughter.

Part of what’s magical about grandchildren, I think, is that the wonder of a baby who’s just learning her world never changes, but now, fearing for her safety is my responsibility. Dad gets to enjoy the unblemished joy of my daughter’s laugh when he places her face to face with her first live puppy without worrying about whether or not she’ll be afraid. If she gets upset, he can just hand her back over. The thrill-seeking of adventure has always been a favorite pastime of my father’s, so having a brand new pair of eyes to delight with his antics provides lots of entertainment when we visit, for both Dad and Josie. She lights up when he comes around the corner, greeting her with his big smile and booming voice. He wears the mantle of grandfatherly delight like he’s been doing this for a long, long time. Of course, my mom might tell you that fearing for our safety was never Dad’s territory; perhaps he’s been a doting grandfather at heart all along.

It is fitting then that it was Dad who first introduced me to raw oysters, what seemed to me at the time as the most adventurous of foods. He convinced me to try lots of different things simply by pretending that I wasn’t grown up enough; if Dad thought it would be daring and precocious for me to try it, I desperately wanted to. Which is perhaps the reason I started drinking coffee with my breakfast before junior high. I wonder what would have happened had he declared broccoli and spinach stuff for more mature eaters only.

But oysters it was, and joining my father in raw oyster consumption became something of a holiday tradition around our house; come December, they always seemed to appear in our kitchen, piled in a slippery mound in a colander, awaiting Dad’s famous cocktail sauce and Saltine crackers. That’s still my favorite way to enjoy them, but when I married David, I joined my culinary adventures to a man who does not share my love of raw mollusks. So over the years, I’ve experimented with different ways to cook them, and this is my most recent favorite. It’s perfect for our combined preferences — the oysters are poached just briefly enough to take the chill off, while retaining the silky texture I so love about raw ones.

Because of my association of oysters with the holidays, I tend to buy them this time of year, particularly when we’re having a meal to celebrate something, whether it’s our first Christmas as parents, or the start of my last semester before I start dissertating (Lord willing).Paired with champagne, this dish made for a deliciously simple celebratory meal a few weeks ago, as we toasted the end of our first semester juggling our roles as parents, teachers, and students. As we discussed what kind of eater our daughter would be, we both hoped that she would fall on the adventurous side, willing to try anything. As long as she spends time in her grandfather’s kitchen, I’d be willing to guess that she’ll be as eager to take culinary risks as I was; perhaps she’ll at least join us in our raw oyster revelry. And if not, there’s always this middle ground, which I like just as well so long as I’m sharing it with someone I love.

Poached Oysters with Bacon, Spinach, and Cream

We like to eat this just the way it comes out of the oven, with a couple of slices of bread to mop up the pan juices, but I can also imagine that it would pair nicely with thin pasta or a bed of mashed potatoes.

4 slices bacon, diced
Half a medium yellow onion, chopped
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups fresh spinach leaves, chopped
1 pint oysters, shucked and drained, liquor reserved
2 T. heavy cream
2 T. reserved oyster liquor
coarse salt, to taste
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup Asiago cheese, grated (Parmesan will also work)
zest of 1 lemon
2 T. butter, softened

Preheat the broiler. In a large, lidded oven-proof skillet, cook the bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon pieces from the skillet, reserving a thin layer of the rendered fat (a tablespoon or two). Cook the yellow onion in the bacon fat over medium heat until very soft and golden, around 10 minutes. Add the garlic and green onions and cook for a few minutes more, until the garlic is soft and aromatic.

Add the chopped spinach leaves to the skillet and stir quickly, coating the leaves with the fat and wilting as you move them around the skillet. Add the cream and oyster liquid, stirring to combine, and cook and stir for a few minutes, until some of the liquid has reduced and the spinach is tender. Sprinkle with salt.
Stir in the bacon pieces, and spread the spinach mixture in an even layer in the skillet. Lay the oysters on top of the bed of wilted spinach, nestling them into the liquid, and put the lid on, allowing them to poach for just a couple of minutes, or just until the edges curl up slightly.
Meanwhile, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, lemon zest, and butter.

When the oysters are curling up at the edges, remove the lid, and stir them into the spinach. Spread the crumbs on top and broil briefly, just long enough for the crumbs to crisp and brown, about a minute (but watch carefully). Serve immediately, with crusty bread, if you like.

Because my daughter’s arrival coincided with the end of the semester (literally—I gave my final exam in the morning and went into labor that evening), I didn’t have much of a chance to wind down as I usually do, throwing myself into the kitchen and cooking furiously, in celebration of the time to do so.

No, instead, I started off my summer break with a newborn, not exactly prime conditions for having huge blocks of time to spend dawdling in the kitchen as I so pleased. But sweet little Josie did enter this world going to bed at a reasonable hour and staying asleep for a good while, which meant that once we got her to sleep, I could prepare dinner undisturbed. Not that I had a lot of energy for dinner, especially in those first few weeks, but I did itch to do something productive besides feed a baby.

So, I turned to the Farmer’s Market for inspiration and set about thinking how to accommodate our new schedule — what could be started early in the day or the night before and finished without too much time and effort after the baby was asleep? Well, salad, for starters.

And, salad worked so well that we have eaten an awful lot of it since Josie’s been in our life. I have a few basic combinations that I tweak here and there depending on what we have lying around. But since I had promised myself I’d try at least one new thing in the kitchen each week, I needed a significant variation on our old green stand-by. Shrimp are abundant and relatively inexpensive at our market this time of year, so we buy them fairly regularly. The little ones we ended up with a few weeks ago were begging to land atop some greens, so I boiled them and marinated them a day ahead of time to make easy work of assembling dinner the next night.

The idea for the marinade comes from Sara Foster, who calls these “Pickled Shrimp” because of the spice combination used to flavor them. Reminiscent of bread and butter pickles, the tangy-sweet marinade doubled as a dressing for our shrimp-topped salad. Next time, I’ll reduce the amount of sugar and marinate some vegetables along with the shrimp for an even quicker and healthier dinner assembly.

Now that I’ve gotten into the cooking groove, if I could only find some time to write about the things I make, then it wouldn’t take me 3 weeks to compose one post. At least I am finally planning our menus again (as you can see below); funny how the little things at this point seem like such big accomplishments!

What does help me to be motivated, I have to say, is all the encouragement from you sweet people who read this blog. It means much to me that after my long silences, some of you still return with heartwarming well wishes for me and my family. Especially for your kind words about Josie, I thank you.

Shrimp Scampi

Steak and cheese sandwiches

(recipe for shrimp after the jump)

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Reheated fish is just not to my liking. The texture is all wrong, and somehow the flavors sharpen unpleasantly in the refrigerator. When I make paneed tilapia, I like to make fish cakes with the leftovers, and cakes would work well with salmon too. But because we’d grilled a whole slab of salmon, I needed something that would last more than just one meal. My guess is that reheated fish cakes wouldn’t be so appetizing either.

So I made salad instead. The combination of salmon, dill, red onion, and capers is a common one, and I added a simple yogurt dressing flavored with lemon and feta cheese. The first night, I served the salad on toasted whole grain bread with rosemary potatoes on the side. For lunch the next day, the salmon salad sat atop a bed of spinach, dressed in a touch of lemon juice and olive oil. Both preparations worked well, and the best part is, once you have leftover salmon, little effort is required to make at least two meals.
Salmon Salad

Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup fresh dill, minced plus extra for garnish
*1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used nonfat)
2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 t. Kosher salt
Leftover salmon (I used about a pound)
1/4 small red onion, minced
2 T. capers, drained

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the lemon juice, dill, yogurt, feta, and salt. Pulse a few times until well combined. In a large bowl, break up the salmon into chunks. Add the red onion and capers and toss to mix. Add dresssing and mix until the salad is moist enough for your liking. Serve on toasted whole grain bread or mound on a bed of spinach. This recipe made enough for 2 dinner-sized portions and at least 4  lunch portions.

*Note: If you want a thicker dressing, mayonnaise would probably work in place of the yogurt.

My good friend Katherine, who has two small children, said to me the other day, “Hey, I have a great idea for your blog.” I saw David smirk in the background because he says that exact thing to me often, only his ideas are usually quickly dismissed (rarely do they have anything to do with food, at least in any realistic sense, and most often, he’s just trying to be a wise guy. A big surprise, I’m sure, to any of you who caught his carbonara recipe.) He was waiting to see if I responded similarly to my friend.

But Katherine’s suggestion was genuine. She said she’d love to see more recipes that are quick and easy that can also provide for two meals. I’d gotten into the habit of cooking that way in the fall and winter last year — slowly roasting vegetables that could morph into side dish, soup, or pasta sauce; cooking two chickens at once for main dish, stock, chicken salad, and a curry or quesadilla. But summer demands a different kitchen ethic: both because our schedule was a bit more lax and because turning the oven on for more than 20 minutes at a time is out of the question, dinner was usually a one-shot deal. Quick, perhaps, but rarely any leftovers.

But as the weather cools slightly and the days become busier, I find myself, perhaps inspired by Katherine’s suggestion, trying to plan more carefully and think ahead, getting more mileage out of the effort I put into particular dishes.

This salmon is a good example. It isn’t difficult or labor-intensive, but because I cook a whole slab at once, it makes a fabulous main dish one night, and then will crumble up into a yummy salad later in the week, enough for another supper and at least a couple of lunches. On the first night, I slathered it with fresh basil pesto, grilled it, and topped it with a silky tomato-cream sauce and fresh basil. Grilled corn and baby eggplants rounded out the plate.

Look for the salad recipe later on, and don’t forget to grill a few extra ears of corn too. It’s another great leftover food.

Grilled Pesto Salmon with Tomato Cream Sauce

1 whole slab salmon (about 1 1/2 - 2 lbs), or 4 6-ounce steaks
1/2 cup basil pesto
Kosher salt and cracked pepper
2 T. butter
1/2 small onion, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium tomato, diced
1/4 cup white wine
1 T. heavy cream
Basil leaves, for garnish

Prepare the grill. Rub the salmon on both sides with the pesto (depending on how thick you make your pesto, you may need to add a bit of olive oil); you should have a nice, thin coating of oil and herbs. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill the salmon, skin side up, until it’s just translucent in the center (it took ours about 4-6 minutes per side).

Meanwhile, saute the onion and garlic in butter over medium-low heat until soft. Add the tomatoes, and stir to heat. Sprinkle with salt. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and pour in the wine. Stir, cooking for a few minutes, until the vegetables have absorbed some of the wine; stir in the cream. Turn the heat down to low, and keep covered until the salmon is ready.

To serve, cut the salmon into 4 equal portions (if whole), and reserve 2 for salad later in the week. Top the steaks with the tomato sauce and fresh basil leaves.

–Recipe adapted from Come On In! by the Junior League of Jackson, MS 

If you come by my house around dinner time and expect to find me slaving over a hot stove these 100-degree, humidity-laden days, you will likely be disappointed. Around here, our evenings tend to look like this: a quick, easy meal, tossed together over white wine and NPR’s Fresh Air, and then, Scrabble.

As a wordy, nerdy, (culinary) bookworm, my love of Scrabble is probably not a mystery. But I really learned to love the game from my great-grandmother, Nanny, who taught me to play. She had one of those fancy, lazy-Susan-esque boards, coated in shiny plastic with neat little cubbies for each letter, upon which she regularly dazzled me with her crossword puzzle-enhanced vocabulary.

Between turns, Nanny was always whipping up something fabulous in her tiny kitchen, so perhaps the combination of delicious food and interesting words is the legacy I’ve always been meant to inherit.

Although Nanny is sadly no longer with us, I can’t help but think she’d be pleased as punch to know that her eldest great granddaughter is carrying on the tradition of loving people through food and, at the same time, soundly defeating them at the game of words. Sorry, David, it sounds like I come by it honestly.

But look at it this way: at least I feed you well in the process.

For a Scrabble dinner date one night a few weeks ago, I put these farmer’s market sweet peppers to work in a salad with some crawfish tails, bacon, goat cheese, and a salty-sweet maple vinaigrette. The quantities are approximate, as with any salad, and the possibilities are endless. Shrimp or grilled chicken could certainly replace the crawfish, and the quantity and variety of veggies is completely up to your personal taste. However you decide to fix your salad, I highly recommend it with Scrabble on the side.

Spinach Salad with Crawfish, Goat Cheese, and Bacon-Maple Dressing

4-6 slices bacon (I like the maple-flavored kind in this salad)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 T. maple syrup plus a drizzle for the nuts
1 T. honey dijon mustard
1 T. balsalmic vinegar
2 T. olive oil
1 T. reserved bacon drippings
Spinach leaves
Sweet peppers (I used two), cut into matchstick-sized pieces
Goat cheese (about 2 ounces)
1 cup cooked crawfish tails (optional)

Cook the bacon in a heavy skillet until it reaches your desired doneness. Remove the slices and set aside. Drain off about a tablespoon of the drippings to reserve, and discard all but a very tiny film on the bottom. Return the skillet to medium heat and add the pecans. Stir, toasting the nuts until they are brown and fragrant. Drizzle with a tiny bit of syrup and stir to coat. Turn off the heat.

In a small bowl, whisk together the reserved bacon drippings, mustard, maple syrup, and vinegar until well-blended. Drizzle in the oil in a very slow stream, whisking constantly until the mixture emulsifies.

Cover two plates with spinach leaves. Top with the peppers, dollops of goat cheese, the toasted nuts, crumbled bacon, and the crawfish tails. Drizzle with the dressing.

The antioxidant-rich peppers and vitamin-laden spinach make this recipe a good candidate for ARF/5-a-day Tuesdays over at Sweetnicks. Head over there to see how other people are eating healthy and staying cool.

This month’s Paper Chef competition, hosted by fellow southerner Kevin at Seriously Good, happened to fall on July 4th weekend. In honor of that timing, Kevin decided that, in addition to the three randomly chosen ingredients,–corn, pine nuts, and ground coriander–the fourth ingredient should in some way represent Independence Day; regardless of our locale, participants should “create a recipe that celebrates your nation’s emancipation from its previous rulers or form of government or whatever other thing celebrated to honor nationhood.” (Somewhat of a paradoxical idea here in America, but I’ll spare you my treatise on that subject.)

Politics and history aside, the idea of freedom is something I can certainly celebrate. The cliche of course is “free as a bird,” and while flying might represent freedom for some, I have always been a water girl. I can’t remember the time before I couldn’t swim, and there are few instances I can think of when I feel more liberated than when my body is gliding through cold water. Especially in this July heat.

In light of that quirk, I chose fish as my fourth ingredient; yellowfin tuna, to be exact, and I prepared him (or her) for David’s and my celebration of this year’s July 4th.

Fresh tuna is such a great summery food–we like it seared and rare, so it takes almost no time to cook, and the flavor is rich enough to stand alone, but mild enough to combine well with other things. Like, you know, corn, coriander, and pine nuts.

The avocado and corn salsa was alternately tart from the lime juice, spicy from the jalapeno, and buttery-sweet from it’s two main ingredients. To spice it up a little, I flavored pine nuts with one of my favorite seasoning combinations: cumin, chile, and coriander, and topped the salsa with the toasted nuts, which provided a nice crunchy texture.

Tuna and avocado is, to me, a perfect match, and the other flavors enhanced the combination even more. Blue corn tortillas added a patriotic touch–see the star in the picture?–and scooped up what was left of the salsa when the tuna had vanished. All in all, this was a delicious meal that I would definitely make again (and, truth be told, some of my farfetched Paper Chef concoctions do not earn that commendation!)

This month’s competition is being judged by Kevin and last month’s winner, Gabriella, of My Life as a Reluctant Housewife. Check Kevin’s site for a round-up and the winners later in the week.

Stars and Stripes Tuna with Avocado-Corn Salsa
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/4 t. ground coriander
1/4 t. ground cumin
1/4 t. chile powder
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Kosher salt (just a sprinkle)
1/4 t. olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 t. ground coriander
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 small tomato, diced
1/2 cup corn kernels, cooked and stripped from the cob, plus extra for serving
1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1 avocado, diced
Juice of 1 lime
1/4 t. Kosher salt
2 very fresh yellowfin tuna fillets, about 1/2 pound each
1/2 t. olive oil
Blue corn tortilla chips

For the nuts: Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the nuts and spices (coriander, cumin, chile, and cayenne). Toast in the dry skillet for a couple of minutes, until the nuts and spices are fragrant. Add 1/4 t. olive oil (a tiny, tiny dribble, just to allow the spices to stick to the nuts), and stir to coat the nuts. Cook, stirring for another 3-4 minutes and sprinkle with salt. The nuts should be golden brown. Remove them from the skillet and set aside.

For the salsa: Stir together the garlic, 1/4 t. ground coriander, cilantro, tomato, corn, and jalapeno pepper. Add the avocado and lime juice and toss gently. Sprinkle with salt and set aside.

For the tuna: Heat 1/2 t. of olive oil in the skillet (the same one you cooked the nuts in) over high until smoking. Add the fillets, and sear on both sides, cooking until your desired doneness (we like ours very rare, so no more than a minute per side for us, but you can cook it longer if you like yours more done).

To plate: Slice the tuna into strips. Arrange the tortilla chips in whatever shape you like (a star for Independence Day, perhaps?), and fan the tuna strips out from the chip bed. Top with avocado salsa and spiced pine nuts. Garnish with extra corn, chips, and cilantro. Our traditional mode of holiday festivities around here usually includes the traditional fancy celebration dinner, and a brunch, for which we forgo both breakfast and lunch,. Especially July 4th, when we can almost always be found watching Wimbledon, brunch suits a lazy holiday quite nicely.

A couple of summers ago, my parents travelled to Napa with some good friends who work for Viking. They got to stay in this fabulous winery, and one night, a chef stopped by to prepare dinner for them and give them a cooking lesson. Ever since that trip, my dad has been making these crab cakes whenever we all get together, and I never get tired of them.

I’m sure every cook who has ever lived near an ocean (and probably many who haven’t) has her own interpretation of this classic preparation of fresh crab. I have modified the original chef’s recipe significantly (which, you might have noticed, is extremely common in my kitchen) based on what I had, what I wanted to spend money on, and what sounded good to me. The original recipe calls for equal parts shrimp, scallops, salmon, and crab, but I opted to prepare them with only crab, and I altered the amounts of almost everything else. I also omitted a called-for red bell pepper because I forgot to buy it at the grocery store (oops!)

Crab cakes are hard to mess up, I think, as long as you keep them simple. In my opinion, fresh crab should be the only thing that you really taste when you put a bite into your mouth; everything else is either for binding purposes or to enhance the crab’s flavor. For that reason, the best crabmeat you can afford to buy will make a huge difference in how your cakes turn out.

Some food is simply meant to be savored, eaten slowly and thoughtfully, each bite given proper attention. Crab cakes, for me, are one of those foods. Once the crisp exterior yields its soft goodness, each bite melts on the tongue, begging to be chewed as slowly as possible. I generally abide by the crab cake’s wishes and take my sweet time with every bite.
When I made these a few weeks ago, we had some friends over, and the only one left to photograph was the one you see above. (I wanted to take a picture of a mound of them on a plate, but I would feel rude about interrupting a dinner party to photograph the food.) They were clearly a hit; none of us said much during the actual eating of the food, and we are all talkative people. Savoring would be an appropriate word to describe our eating experience. My sweet friend Katherine, when we were finished, said it was one of the best meal’s she’d eaten in a long time.

The chef in Napa served the cakes over a bed of guacamole, and while that pairing doesn’t sound natural to me, everyone at our dinner agreed that it worked quite well. The texture and mellow flavor of the avocados pairs nicely with the soft, mild crabmeat, and the kick of the jalapeno brings out the cake’s spiciness.

With a simple salad and some crisp white wine, it made for one of the best meals I’ve eaten in a long time too. Don’t you love when that happens in your own kitchen?

Crab Cakes and Guacamole

For the crab cakes:
1 pound fresh, lump crabmeat
1/4 cup mayonnaise (preferably homemade)
1 egg, beaten
2 green onions, green and white parts, minced
1 t. dry mustard
1/8 t. cayenne pepper
1/4 t. white pepper
1/2 t. Kosher salt
2 cups Panko (Japanese bread crumbs), divided
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter

Pick through the crabmeat to remove any loose shells; place in a large bowl. Add the mayonnaise, egg, green onions, dry mustard, peppers, and salt, and lightly fold together, being careful not to break up the crabmeat too much. Add 1/2 cup of the bread crumbs and fold into the crabmeat mixture. Refrigerate for at least a half an hour.

Heat the olive oil and butter in a skillet over medium heat. Pour the remaining bread crumbs onto a plate. Form the crab mixture into round patties, and coat with bread crumbs. Fry in the hot oil/butter for about 2-3 minutes per side, or until the coating is crisp and brown. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels to drain any excess oil.

For the guacamole:
2 ripe avocadoes, sliced into chunks
Juice of 1 lemon
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1 small Roma tomato, small-diced
2 T. minced red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 t. Kosher salt
1/2 t. cracked black pepper

Sprinkle the avocado slices with the juice of half of the lemon and a palmful of Kosher salt. Mix the tomato, red onion, garlic, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Add the avocado and mash coarsely with a fork. Sprinkle with the remaining lemon juice and combine with the fork.

To serve: Place a mound of guacamole on the center of a plate. Top with 2 crab cakes and a lemon wedge.

Notes: My friend Mica requested a crab cake recipe without mayonnaise. Although I don’t think the mayo in this recipe is detectable–used only to bind the cakes together–does anyone know of another binding agent that would work for mayo-haters? Sorry, Mica, I didn’t remember that this recipe called for your most hated condiment

Two things I have bought every week at the farmer’s market for the past few weeks: corn and shrimp. Both have a delicately sweet flavor that reminds me of summer, so the combination is a natural one in my mind.

Shrimp and corn soup as prepared in restaurants around here is usually either roux-based, dark and heavy, or cream-based, light in flavor but not in substance; both versions are a bit too hearty for this sultry summer heat.

This shrimp and corn soup is light and flavorful, packed with the flavors of the two featured ingredients and not much else, which, for this simple girl, is how soup should be. The broth I made from shrimp stock in my freezer, boiled with the leftover corn cobs, but you can make vegetable stock with the corn and water if you don’t have any shrimp stock on hand or if you’re pressed for time.

This soup is a good dish to make on a lazy summer afternoon–it takes a bit of time, but not much cooking really; most of the time you can spend sipping lemonade and watching the stock simmer. I served it with a green salad and Rosemary Olive Oil bread (Rorie’s recipe, which I altered by reducing the sugar to 1/2 cup and substituting pine nuts for the walnuts–it was fabulous!)

Summer Shrimp and Corn Soup

3 ears corn
1/3 cup milk
2-3 cups shrimp stock (or water)
1 T. olive oil
1/2 large sweet yellow onion
1 clove garlic
2 small new potatoes, small-diced
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 lb. of small to medium shrimp, shelled
Fresh basil leaves, for garnish

Cut the kernels for the corn cobs and set aside.
In a large pot, combine the shrimp stock with the trimmings from the onion and the corn cobs. Simmer for about 45 minutes.

In a small saucepan, cover the corn kernels with the milk and heat over medium until the milk boils; reduce the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil over medium to medium-low heat; add the onion and garlic and cook until translucent but not brown, about 10 minutes. Add the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, then cover with stock. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Adjust seasonings and add the shrimp. Cook the soup for another 5 minutes, or until the shrimp are pink and opaque. Serve topped with chopped fresh basil. Serves 4 as an entree, 6-8 as a starter.

You know how at some restaurants, no matter how much you want to be adventurous, you just keep going back to the same familiar dish? That’s how I felt every time I ate at Amerigo in Jackson, Mississippi, a great little Italian restaurant where I seemed to always end up on special occasions. My dear friend Angie took me there for my 16th birthday, and what I ordered then (12 years ago this Thursday!) is what I would order if I was there right now. Amerigo has a fantastic menu, with seasonal specials and lots to choose from, but regardless of how long I stared at my choices, I always returned to shrimp scampi.
Shrimp scampi is not a complicated dish, but for some reason, I could never quite capture the flavor of Amerigo’s version. This most recent effort comes closest, and I think I’ve discovered at least two secrets: lots of very fresh garlic and straight-from-the-Gulf-shrimp. Because there are so few ingredients, it makes sense that the ones that are required should be as fresh as possible. The rest of the recipe, really, is super easy and comes together in about 20 minutes.
Since I’m not in Jackson anymore, away from the comfort of familiar restaurants, it’s nice to know that I can create an old favorite myself. Until, that is, I find a new menu favorite to cling to.

Favorite Shrimp Scampi
1 pound angel hair pasta
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound peeled shrimp
1/2 cup good white wine (I used a buttery Chardonnay)
Parmesan cheese
Lemons and green onions, for garnish

Cook the pasta in boiling water until al dente; drain and rinse and set aside. Heat the olive oil and butter over low heat. Add the garlic and cook slowly, stirring, being careful not to let it brown, for about 12 minutes. It should be very soft and fragrant. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and add the shrimp. Cook for about 2 minutes and turn. Pour the wine over the shrimp, and continue to cook for another 2 or 3 minutes, until the shrimp are pink and opaque. To serve, spoon a handful of noodles into shallow bowls or rimmed plates, and pour shrimp and garlic sauce over. Cover with a layer of grated Parmesan cheese. Serve with lemon wedges and chopped green onions or chives. Serves 4 as a main dish.

The first time my husband saw me eat a raw oyster, I wasn’t sure if our relationship would make it. I have treasured these sea-dwelling delicacies for as long as I can remember. But David? Not so keen on the texture. And, he cringed every time I slid one off of a cracker into my mouth. But oysters are supposed to be so romantic, I said, the ultimate love food. How could we be in love and not enjoy oysters together?

Thankfully, David bravely overcame his oyster-phobia and even enjoys them raw (or so he says) these days. But one of his favorite ways that I fix them is this way: baked under a layer of bread crumbs, butter, and blue cheese.

Because I love them so, we often have oysters on various special occasions. It just so happens that I made these about a month ago, in celebration five years of marriage to the man who has learned to endure many quirky things about me, including my passion for these slippery little mollusks. For that alone, I love him so.

This recipe is adapted from Blue Cheese Oysters in (fittingly enough) Martha Hopkins’ and Randall Lockridge’s aphrodesiac cookbook, Intercourses.

Blue Cheese Oyster Gratin

2 dozen oysters (I buy them already shucked, packed in liquid from my fish market)
4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup bread crumbs
3 T. butter, softened
Sliced bread (I used sourdough)
2 large cloves garlic, halved

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees; spray a square baking dish with cooking spray. In a small bowl, combine the butter, bread crumbs, and blue cheese. Lay the oysters in a single layer in the bottom of the baking dish. Top evenly with the blue cheese mixture. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, until the bread crumbs are browned and the cheese is soft and melted. Toast the bread slices while the oysters are baking. Rub each side with the cut side of a garlic clove; serve the oyster gratin with the toast.

I served a simple salad on the side: raddicchio, baby lettuce, carrot, halved grapes, and blue cheese crumbles, under a sherry mustard vinaigrette (for which I promise to post a recipe soon; I always forget to measure quantities when I make it!)