the garden experiments

It's already summer here in South Carolina, and that means fresh, local shrimp. And as you can see from the photo, the garden is going nuts. So, for me that meant a fresh Caesar salad with spiced shrimp. I'm not a fan of most Caesar salads at casual restaurants, because they are usually a sad combination of bottled dressing, bagged croutons, and cheap parm.  Add some overcooked shrimp to the equation and you are likely north of 10 bucks for something that is mediocre at best. Made from scratch with quality ingredients, and Caesar salad becomes something altogether different. I headed out to the garden and picked some romaine leaves, washed them, wrapped them in some paper towels, and tossed them in the fridge to crisp.

In my opinion, store-bought croutons are an abomination, and home made ones are very easy to do. I bought a small loaf of sour dough bread, removed the crusts, and cubed it into fairly large cubes. I also sliced up two cloves of garlic and put them in about 4 tablespoons of olive oil.

 about 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven will begin to toast the bread

While the bread toasted in the oven, I threw together the dressing. It is traditional to toss the dressing ingredients one at a time with the romaine lettuce, but I just tossed everything into the blender to make things even easier. The blender will also emulsify the dressing more efficiently than a hand-toss, making a creamier dressing. For the two of us, I used one egg that I had boiled for one minute.  That will barely begin to set the white, making for a creamier dressing. To that I added the juice of one lemon, about a teaspoon of anchovy paste, a half a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.  Then I added about three tablespoons of olive oil and blended it all together, until I had a nice creamy dressing. What about the garlic? I sometimes find the taste of raw garlic a bit overwhelming, so I had a different plan to bring that classic flavor into the mix.  Once I had infused the oil with the garlic, I drained the oil into a hot pan to fry the croutons, and tossed the peeled shrimp with the garlic slices and a couple big pinches of red pepper flakes.

 it only takes about 30 minutes to infuse the shrimp with garlic and pepper

 in the mean time I fried the croutons in the hot garlic oil

Toasting the croutons in the oil took about 10 minutes, and I had fresh, crisp little cubes of bread. The shrimp cooks extremely quickly as well.  I lowered the heat under the same pan that I toasted the bread in, and sauteed the shrimp very gently, just until the were opaque, about 7 or 8 minutes.

  a gentle heat will assure both that the shrimp won't toughen 

and that the garlic won't burn

 Both the beauty and the danger of cooking seafood, particularly delicate shellfish like shrimp and scallops is that they can go from perfectly cooked to overcooked in less than a minute. Remember that they will continue to cook from residual heat, and take them off the fire as soon as they have just turned opaque.

From there, it's merely a matter of tossing the torn romaine with about 1/2 a cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese, the shrimp, croutons, and the dressing, and you have a delicious, light summer dinner.

a refreshing, light mid-week dinner that is cheaper and likely

tastier than what you can get at your neighborhood restaurant