rivka

(cross-posted to

food_porn)

Pascal's Manale is a New Orleans restaurant on the edge of the Garden District, famous above all else for their barbecue shrimp. It's not really barbecue, by either definition I'm familiar with - it's not slow-roasted for many hours over an open pit, and it's not grilled outdoors. It's just shrimp - heads, tails, and all - served in an exquisite garlicky, peppery broth.

Pascal's Manale has never released their recipe for shrimp, but, as it happens, Southern Living magazine thinks they've come up with a pretty good approximation.

curiousangel and I tried it tonight.

1 pound unpeeled, large, fresh shrimp or 1.5 pounds shrimp with heads on
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp chili sauce
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 lemon, sliced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 Tbsp Creole seasoning (we used Essence of Emeril)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 Tbsp chopped parsley
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 tsp hot sauce (we used Cajun Sunshine)

Spread shrimp in a shallow, aluminum foil-lined broiler pan. Combine sauce ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until butter melts, and pour over shrimp. Cover and chill for two hours, turning shrimp every half hour. Bake, uncovered, at 400 for 20 minutes; turn once. Serve in bowls with the sauce ladled over, and with bread. (We used fresh rosemary-olive oil bread.) Serves two. (What can I say? We like shrimp.)

It was insanely good. It's not quite Pascal's, but it was tangy and garlicky and peppery and I licked my fingers dozens of times and then used multiple slices of bread to soak up the sauce. It was beautiful, all rosy orange. It smelled heavenly. Foodvana. And the coolest thing is that it was also insanely easy to make. It took about ten minutes to throw the sauce ingredients together. It took me more time to figure out what "chili sauce" is than it did to make the entire dish.

This would be great for parties, because it's easy and yet impressive. But they'd have to be the kind of casual parties where no one minds having sauce run down their arms right to the elbows.

Mmmmm, barbecue shrimp. My fingers still taste good.