Shrimps!

So, our Cape Ann Fresh Catch CSF is constantly throwing me a curve ball.  Every time I plan a recipe for an anticipated white fish meal on the day of distribution, I end up getting something unexpected.  Now, this isn’t something to complain about, really.  Last time this happened, I got Monkfish, which was awesome. Yesterday, I got North Atlantic Shrimp.

North Atlantic Shrimp

And let me say, FIVE POUNDS of North Atlantic Shrimp!  Our pictures don’t do them justice, but they are beautiful!

Look at this amazing fellow!

I must say, we haven’t had shrimp since we went on our local food challenge.  So, this was a special treat.  Nonetheless, my planned tomato fish stew (ciopinno-like) was not going to cut it for these fellas for our dinner last night.  These are very tender and sweet shrimp; a bit of a gourmet treat from what we hear.  Something not over-powering was needed for our meal, to let these guys shine.

We started prepping them for a simple cooking in boiling salted water, by de-heading them!  There was a moment of- oh my god, I’m dealing with giant sea bugs!  I mean… they are arthropods…. But, we got over our squeemish feelings and dug right in. We even tried a few raw- which is apparently one way to enjoy them fresh.  Don’t worry, we’re fine the day after, so it was safe. 🙂 We trust the people at Cape Ann Fresh Catch.

De-headed, boiled shrimp for our dinner.

One cool thing was that a lot of them had little blue eggs on their underside.  Apparently, they come in shore for egg hatching and therefore are more easily caught with eggs (don’t worry, this is a stable fishery).

The blue eggs on the underside of the shrimps.

The eggs were neat, and were essentially shrimp caviar.  We tried some off of the individuals with really fresh, clean eggs.  It was nice, mild and briny.  Very tasty.

Our meal for these fellas?  Simple boiled shrimp served over broiled potatoes, chopped spinach, and served with a garlic butter sauce.  Classy.

Shrimps, potato wedges, spinach.

I must say that the shrimp was delicious.  Perhaps the best tasting shrimp I have ever had.  Fresh, tender, sweet and briny.  Just delicious. The simple and classic meal worked out really well.

Five pounds of shrimp is a lot, so we decided to carefully freeze the rest down.  We de-headed all of the shrimpies, and I washed them really well and put them in plastic bags, filled them with water, removed all of the air and froze them down.

Look at all 'em shrimps!

We also saved a serving for lunch today-so that we could make grapefruit-shrimp ceviche.  We’ll let you know how that goes.

After deheading so many shrimp, we had a lot of shrimp heads.

A little morbid, if you ask me.

Since, this is such a treat, we want to savor every bit.  So, we’ll be boiling these down to make shrimp stock today.  Nom.

[If you wonder why I say ‘shrimps’, instead of just the proper ‘shrimp’, it is because of growing up in Florida.  It’s a very southern thing to say shrimps.  I’m just relishing in it.]

For dessert, we had the decadent orange-almond-chocolate flourless cake that we had a few days ago.  It was a new variation on our recipe for winter squash flourless cake, that we got from A Spoonful of Sugar Free.  As always, it was intense and delicious.

Orange, almond, chocolate flourless cake.

Now, this is a pretty non-local dessert, and so I wouldn’t necessarily want to encourage everyone to go and buy non local ingredients.  But, I just have to share this recipe.  It is such a tasty dessert, intense, chocolatey, orange zingy, and just decadent.  So, here is our recipe.  Use at your own discretion!

Orange-Almond-Chocolate Flourless Cake: (makes 4 cupcakes)

Ingredients:

• 1 orange
• 1 oz of almonds
• 1/4 cup of cocoa
• 2 tbsp sugar (can use less or replace)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg
• water
• a few pieces of chocolate to garnish

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Chop up orange.
3. Simmer orange in water until it is tender.
4. While orange is cooling, grind almonds to small chunks/ small powder in a food processor.
5. Mix almonds, cocoa, baking powder, and sugar.
6. Grind oranges in food processor with egg until peel is well pureed.
7. Mix cocoa mixture with orange mixture, adding enough water to make cake batter consistency.
8. Put mixture into cupcake papers.
9. Top with chocolate bits.
10. Bake for 15 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
11. Let cool.  Serve!

Local sources of our food for the evening:

• Shrimps:  Cape Ann Fresh Catch CSF
• Potatoes:  Wood Prairie Farm
• Spinach, Garlic and Eggs:  Red Fire Farm
• Cocoa Powder:  Lake Champlain Chocolates
• Chocolate: Taza Chocolate

That was our exciting evening last night, shrimps, and orange chocolate cake.  Cannot get better than that.  I think it sort of makes up for the fact that we’re getting another Nor’easter later today.  Good luck with the snow, everyone!