Gather Round the Table: Shrimp

First of all, if you will indulge me for a moment in a bit of confessed food snobbery, I just have to get this off my chest. Scampi is shrimp. It is not a recipe, not a method of preparing shrimp (or anything else for that matter), but simply shrimp. Traditionally, they are of the smaller variety, the larger ones being called scampi imperiali in Italian, and the best ones come from the Adriatic near Venice. Calling a dish “shrimp scampi,” which is used most often to refer to shrimp sautéed with garlic, white wine, butter and parsley, is redundant no matter how tasty it is. Here endeth the rant, thanks for your patience. I feel better now.

People have been enjoying shrimp at least as far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans, and there are plenty of records attesting to this. An ancient Roman recipe called for cooked shrimp to be tossed with ground celery seed, green peppercorn, chopped celery, vinegar and chopped, hard-cooked eggs. Sounds okay to me.

There are thousands of ways to prepare shrimp today. As Forrest Gump’s friend Bubba made so eloquently clear, “You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. There, uh, shrimp kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, panfried, deep fried, stir fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich... that's, that's about it.”

Bubba’s notation of the shrimp’s versatility is duly noted, although he did leave out perhaps the most popular way to eat it in the US - shrimp cocktail – this despite the dish’s bayou origins. It got it’s name from being served in cocktail glasses in new Orleans bars, and was originally made with oysters rather than shrimp. To make the classic cocktail sauce, simply combine to your taste a good quality ketchup with fresh grated horseradish, lemon juice, black pepper, Tabasco and Worcestershire.

If frying is your preference, remember these simple keys. The oil should be very hot, at least 375 f. The shrimp, conversely, should be very cold, and very dry before you bread or batter or dust it in flour. Also, don’t crowd your fryer. This could cause it to boil over, and definitely will make for a soggy, tough final product.

Those of you who read this column regularly know I am always talking about the importance of buying locally. But since the nearest ocean is 900 miles away from me, the next best thing, and the surest way to get great fresh (never frozen) shrimp, is to buy it from Fabian Seafood, whose truck will be in Iowa City (at the Dairy Queen on Riverside) and in Waterloo one more time this season, so we'll stock up. They don't just come to Iowa City either, so get on their mailing list by visiting www.FabianSeafood.com.

Simple Stuffed Shrimp

1 pound fresh shrimp (16-20 size, peeled & deveined, tail on)

1 cup fresh ground sausage (Italian or chorizo)

1/4 cup fresh salsa or pico de gallo

Salt & Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375

Using a sharp paring knife, cut deeper along the incision made when deveining the shrimp, but not all the way through. Then press each shrimp onto a baking dish or sheetpan with the tail pointing up.

Place about 2 teaspoons of sausage onto each shrimp, and press the tail down on the sausage to hold it in place. Bake at 375 f. for ten minutes.

Serve immediately garnished with pico de gallo.

Serves 2 as entrée, 4 as appetizer.

		Kurt Michael Friese, Gather Food Correspondent
	Gather ‘Round the Table is a regular feature of Gather Essentials: Food. Chef Kurt Michael Friese is a freelance food & wine writer & photographer. He is also the co-owner - with his wife Kim - of Devotay, a restaurant in Iowa City, serves on the Slow Food USA Board of Directors, and is owner/publisher of the local food magazine Edible Iowa River Valley. His book, A Cook's Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland was released in the fall of 2008. He lives in rural Johnson County, Iowa. Keep up with Kurt Michael's food series by joining his network, or subscribing to his content.

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