[Sca-cooks] midwinter shrimp recipe

[Kathleen Roberts]

Thank you! It sounds wonderful. What was is the original recipe? Or where did you get it from?  You may have said this already, but I've forgotten. 

I must admit it was a conglamoration of several recipes in the 4 or 5 Apicius translation/Roman cookery books I was using.  Some were easier than others to say "Yeah, that's it" but this one took some testing.  I recall rue in some of the recipes, which I nixed.  I nixed the pennyroyal in the olive spread and subbed with mint.  Keeping people safe, doncha know?


So why did you choose balsamic vinegar for your feast? I actually think the cider would taste the best, personally.

Perfectly period cooks... look!  a butterfly!!!!... ;)   I used an assortment in different dishes,red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and pomegranate red wine vinegar.  Not perfectly period, but in a first course of mostly marinated and/or salad items, it gave a nicely rounded taste. Not everything had the same base taste.   The balsamic was smoother than the cider, which is why I chose it.   The marinated red onions and the cucumber and fennel salad were pretty tart.  The beets and mustard had the balsamic as well, as did the olive spread.  BTW, Walmart has a fairly decent, economical balsamic that works great when mixing it with other things.

Speaking of balsamic, I discovered from one of our feasters that some people allergic to latex cannot eat balsamic vinegar.  Fortunately, I identified each kind of vinegar on the ingredient list specifically, so she had no problems.

The simple salad itself (a huge assortment of greens and herbs) was simply dressed with salt, olive oil, pomegranate vinegar and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.  People loved the dressing.  Oh, yes, and it was sprinkled with powdered gold for the head table.   Gold made it's appearance again on the desserts so in the end (no pun intended) everybody got some who wanted some.

<<< If serving hot, steam shrimp lightly >>>

My first impulse would be to boil the shrimp, but steaming them might be better and less "rough" on the shrimp.

Exactly!  And I think you retain more flavor steaming than boiling.

The only thing I probably don't have sitting around here at home is some white grape juice and some shallots. I'll have to try this.

Hope you enjoy it.  I am still hearing from individuals that the feast was great and they ate ( or could/wanted to eat everything), so all in all, with all the beauracracy (sp?), I think I can consider it a success at the end of the day.

Cailte



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