Muoi Thien Huong

Not long ago, I made a huge batch of boiled shrimp for the boys — more than could be downed in one sitting. I was a little taken aback that anything was left at all, but, to be fair, the pot had been brimming with not merely shrimp, but cobs of corn, fat links of smoked sausage, garlic heads, and more, all seasoned with a satchel of South Louisiana spices.

Leftover shrimp aren't exactly a curse, but they were already cooked, so they wouldn’t work in gumbo the way I make it. I was thinking of a simple salt-and-pepper treatment I’d done on shrimp last year when Luke Nguyen sprung to mind. For the last several weeks, I’d been reading the recipes of this Vietnamese-Australian cook, author, and culinary explorer; his muoi thien huong (salt-and-pepper seasoning) seemed a perfect fit.

Within five minutes, I’d cranked out a batch of Nguyen’s simple seasoning laced with ginger and five-spice powder, sliced two limes, dumped a handful of cold cooked shrimp on a plate, and started dipping.

I ate alone. There would be no leftovers this time. Nobody saw my smiles.

From Secrets of the Red Lantern (in which it's also deployed with shrimp), here’s Nguyen’s

Muoi Thien Huong
(salt and pepper seasoning mix)

1 Tbl salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp five-spice powder

Mix thoroughly and store in an airtight container

Afterwards, in the wake of my speedboat gluttony, I realized the rice noodles in the cabinet would’ve made a nice complement, maybe with a splash of fish sauce and fresh mint.

Ah well. There will be extra shrimp next time, too.

Pauline Nguyen, Luke Nguyen, and Mark Jensen (2008)
Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Vietnamese Recipes from the Heart
344 pages (hardback)
Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 0740777432
$40.00

Goes well with:

• Easy Shrimp, a stripped-down version of the above from last year for an even more streamlined way of dealing with leftover shrimp.
• Shrimp aren't the only Vietnamese thing that makes me smile.  The fish sauce fried chicken wings at Pok Pok in Portland were, hands down, the culinary revelation of the year. We dispatched an inordinate number of chickens replicating the recipe.
• When I boil shrimp South Louisiana style, I dink with his his ingredients and proportions, but Chuck Taggart's seafood boil seasoning recipe over at Gumbo Pages is the backbone of what goes into my own pot. 
• Two other seasoning/spice mixes, one from Hungarian Louis Szathmary and one from Donald Link of Cochon in New Orleans. 

Easy Shrimp

I'm stuck at the house today. Leg injury. This involuntary immuration is driving me to the edge of sanity. It's a beautiful day, not a cloud in the stunning blue heaven that arcs above. Yet here I am, confined to the couch and those places I can reach in short, zombie-like shuffles. But I take comfort in this fact: Today is better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better yet.

I'm not an optimist, you understand: I just refuse to be sick.

Standing to cook, though, is a pain. So I rummaged through the fridge, pulled out a bag of boiled shrimp (Louisiana style, naturally), and piled them on a plate. I tipped about a tablespoon of sea salt on the plate, ground some black pepper on it, and squeezed lime juice over the little pile.

Peel a shrimp, dip it in the mixture, and pop it. Easiest lunch in a week.

Pickled Shrimp, a Lowcountry Ceviche

It’s hot in San Diego. Miserable hot. Playing in the hose hot. To escape the worst of the heat, I turned on the stove—briefly—yesterday morning to blanch shrimp for an old version of a cold ceviche that South Carolinians would recognize simply as pickled shrimp.

The recipes for both the shrimp and the spice mix for the boil are adapted from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, though I altered the proportions for a bigger batch. In heat like this, I’m firing up the burners as infrequently as possible, so the bigger batch gets us through two days with minimal extra hotness. Most of the batch got toted along to a poker game last night with a mess of sangria, but there’s still a few to throw in a green salad for lunch or a light dinner. They're snappy little appetizers for cocktail parties and handy to have on a picnic. Better with beer than wine, though: the residual acidity in the shellfish can clash with red wines in particular.

An ingredient note: the original recipe calls for sour oranges, but those are infrequent finds here. The mix of fresh juices below is an attempt to recreate that Seville/naranja agria taste. If you have blood oranges, then by all means use them for the orange juice component in the juice blend. They make a better-tasting pickle and I regret we had none on hand. Still, though, this was tasty. And house is cool as a cucumber today.

Pickled Shrimp

First make the pickling solution.

3 large dried bay leaves
1 oz pimentro dram or 5 whole allspice berries
1.5 oz coriander seeds, dry toasted for 30 seconds until aromatic
1.5 Tbl black peppercorns
1 Tbl kosher salt
1 Tbl sugar
1.5 tsp Aleppo or other red pepper flakes
1.5 cups rice vinegar
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup fresh grapefruit juice
1 cup fresh Valencia or blood orange juice

1. Grind the bay leaves, allspice (if using), coriander, peppercorns, salt, and sugar in a mortar or spice mill into a rough powder. Add this powder to a 3- or 4-quart nonreactive container.
2. Add the vinegar, juices, red pepper, and pimento dram (if using) to the container and set aside.

Second, blanch the shrimp.

1 gallon water
4 Tbl shrimp boil (see below)
3 lbs medium shrimp, heads off, peels on

1. Heat the water and shrimp boil spice mixture in a large stock pot. Rinse and drain the shrimp while the water heats.
2. Let the water boil 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the shrimp (in two batches if necessary) to the water, turn off the heat, and let it rest one minute. The shrimp will turn pink and firm.
4. Using a strainer, scoop out the shrimp and throw over ice to stop the cooking.
5. Peel the shrimp, slip them into the pickling solution, and cool.

The cooled shrimp are ready to eat within four hours and are best if eaten with 24.

The shrimp boil spice mix is also from the Lee brothers’ cookbook, though I prefer to make mine more of a powder than the rough grinding they call for. This is a decent all-purpose seafood boil and would be fine for crabs, crawfish, and other shellfish as well as broiled or grilled fish.

Shrimp Boil

1 Tbl peppercorns
1 Tbl celery seeds
6 bay leaves, snipped with scissors
½ cup kosher salt
3 Tbl ground cayenne

Place all ingredients in a spice mill (I use a Krups coffee mill for spices—and nothing but spices). Grind to a medium powder. Store in a jar.

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White Dog and Pink Shrimp

For years, I've been a fan of Indonesia's sweet soy sauce called kecap manis, distant cousin to America's ubiquitous tomato ketchup. Even though it's practically a staple in grocery stores catering to Asian customers in the US, Westerners don't often know the molasses-like sauce. And that's a shame—because a bottle keeps forever in the larder and in a pinch when guests arrive, it lends itself to a lot of different on-the-fly marinades, dips, and even sneaky barbecue sauce.

In particular, I like a simple marinade that's little more than the kecap, melted butter, and lime. Sometimes I doctor it up with ginger or red chiles. And if I happen to have a supply of straight-from-the-still white dog, a dose of moonshine whiskey is liable to go in the sauce, too. No moonshine? That's ok: You could leave it out entirely or, if you have some overproof rum such as J. Wray & Nephew or Lemon Hart 151, use a dose of that instead.

With a few tweaks and optional ingredients, this is my recipe as Fred Thompson used it in his Barbecue Nation (The Taunton Press, 2007).

Bootleg Shrimp

2 lbs 24-26 count shrimp
4 oz unsalted butter
4 oz fresh lime juice
4 oz kecap manis (Heinz ABC brand)
2 oz white dog or overproof rum
1 Tbl fresh ginger, grated (optional)
1-2 tsp crushed red pepper (optional)

Clean the shrimp, but leave the shells on, rinse them, and set them aside.

Melt the butter in a small pan or skillet. If using, add the red pepper and ginger. Simmer briefly to extract their flavor. Remove from heat (remember, kids: high-proof liquor is flammable) and add the remaining ingredients. Stir to combine.

Add half this marinade to the shrimp, toss to coat, and set aside for 20-30 minutes while heating the grill. Grill the marinated shrimp 2-3 minutes per side (in two batches if necessary) until pink and showing a little char on their shells. Dump them in a large communal bowl and serve with the remaining half of the sauce (heated) for dipping on the side.

Lots of towels. Make some rice or bread to go with.

Nah, I'm not shilling Heinz products. It's just that ABC is good and—at less than a cup of Starbucks coffee—the 21-oz bottles are cheap. According to Business Week ("The Ketchup King Prospers" by Matthew Boyle, 8 Sept 2008), ABC is the second-largest soy sauce company in the world, second only to Japanese behemoth Kikkoman. With over $200 million in sales (2007), it's a good bet there's some in your neighborhood. If not, you could swap out sorghum or cane syrup such as Steen's. Won't be the same, but I'm happy to come over and try the results.

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