June 3

A Friendly Game of Clue

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• Fried Cornmeal Shrimp [View Recipe]

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  Ingredients

  • 1 pound shrimp
  • .67 cup milk
  • .125 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 cup cornmeal
  • .5 lemon
  • salt
  • oil
  • [object Object]
  • tartar sauce

  Instructions

  We start by defrosting our shrimp in a colander in the sink according to the package directions.

  In a gallon size resealable plastic bag, we combine the milk and smoked paprika. We add the shrimp and seal. We refrigerate, in a bowl (for extra "safety"), for an hour. We could have just had the shrimp marinating at room temperature for 10 minutes, or in the refrigerator for half an hour, but we have an errand to run so we let them soak for an hour.

  When it is about half an hour before we want to eat, we pour the cornmeal into a shallow bowl and lay paper towels out on one dinner plate and get another dinner plate ready.

  We drain the shrimp by opening the plastic bag a bit and pouring off the juices. We lay the shrimp out on the paper towels and squeeze the lemon half all over the shrimp. We also toss the shrimp with a little salt and add a little to the cornmeal and stir with our hands.

  One at a time, we coat a shrimp with the cornmeal and place on the clean dinner plate. When all the shrimp are coated, we wash our hands well and then refrigerate the coated shrimp. We discard the wet paper towels. With clean hands, we get a clean plate ready with paper towels to drain the cooked shrimp.

  We put our Dutch oven on the stove and put a few inches of oil in it for frying. We turn on the heat to medium-high and put a deep-fat fry thermometer into the oil. We want the oil to reach <temp val="370"/> to start frying.

  When the oil is hot enough, we place, using clean hands, 8 of the shrimp (carefully) into the hot oil. We wash our hands well and use our "spider" strainer to flip the shrimp around in the oil. We want the shrimp nicely browned and cooked all the way through. This takes about 3 minutes.

  We remove them to the paper towel lined plate and sprinkle with salt. We repeat the frying with more shrimp, waiting each time for the temperature to reach <temp val="370"/> again.

  We could have transferred the already cooked shrimp into a warm oven, but we do not bother here. The shrimp are too delicious to wait! We serve with <a year="2002" month="02" day="15" label="cocktail_sauce">cocktail</a> and tartar sauces.

• Phyllo Salmon with Spicy Smoked Salmon Stuffing [View Recipe]

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  Ingredients

  • 2 ounces cream cheese
  • 7 medium pepperoncini (drained)
  • 1 large shallot
  • .5 large lemon (rinsed and dried)
  • 2 ounces smoked salmon
  • .5 tablespoon lemon thyme (cleaned)
  • salt &amp; pepper
  • 1.5 pounds salmon (defrosted in fridge)
  • 7 sheets phyllo (defrosted in fridge)
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons oil

  Instructions

  We start with the filling for the salmon. On a small microwaveable plate, we place the cream cheese and microwave at 20% power for 30 seconds. We just want to soften it. We place it in the chopper attachment to our immersion blender.

  On our cutting board, with clean disposable gloves on, we remove and discard the stems from the pepperoncini. Each is sliced in half and any large clumps of seeds are thrown into our "garbage bowl". The pickled peppers are coarsely chopped and added to the cream cheese.

  The cutting board is dried with paper towels and then the shallot is peeled. The shallot is quartered and then coarsely chopped. A heaping quarter cup of shallot is added to the chopper.

  We pulse the cheese and vegetable mixture until the pieces are finely chopped. Leaving the lid to the chopper on the side, we use our microplane to add the zest from the lemon half to the mixture.

  On the cutting board, we chop the smoked salmon (weighed on our kitchen scale) into small pieces and add to the chopper. We also add the lemon thyme leaves, a little salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. We pulse briefly to mix. We taste for seasoning.

  We preheat the oven to <temp val="400"/>.

  We rinse and pat dry the salmon fillet and then cut into five portions. We have roughly 5 ounce pieces, although the shapes of the salmon pieces vary. One at a time, we take a piece of salmon and horizontally slice it in the center (carefully!), starting at the thickest end, not quite all the way through. We want to create a space for the filling. We set aside, and repeat with the rest of the salmon.

  Each piece is then filled with the cream cheese mixture, trying to divide it evenly. Some of the mixture oozes out, we just try to keep it in the middle of the salmon pieces. All the filled salmon pieces are placed on a large dinner plate, covered loosely with plastic wrap, and refrigerated for a few minutes.

  With clean hands and a clean work space, we are ready to work with the phyllo. We put the butter in a cup and microwave for 30 seconds to melt. We also have ready the olive oil and a pastry brush.

  We lay one piece of the phyllo on the cutting board, keeping the rest of the sheets under a piece of plastic wrap. We brush it lightly with butter, top it with another sheet, also brushed with butter, topped with a third sheet, and brushed again (very lightly) with butter. The phyllo is cut into 3 pieces.

  We try to fit 3 of the smaller filled salmon into the center of each of the phyllo sections. We brush with some oil and squeeze on a little lemon juice. The sides of the phyllo are pulled in and then the enclosed piece is placed, seam side down, on a clean plate. The fit was not always perfect, so a "touch-up" job was done with an extra piece of phyllo cut to fit around the exposed salmon.

  The wrapped salmon are refrigerated, covered with plastic, until we are ready to bake. If we were doing this ahead of time, we could have set these up a few hours in advance. This time, however, we repeat with the remaining salmon pieces and the 3 whole phyllo sheets.

  When we are ready to bake, we brush the top of the phyllo wrapped salmon with olive oil. We bake for 20 minutes and check the color of the phyllo. We want it lightly browned. We give our pieces a few more minutes and serve.

• Roasted Potatoes
• Salad with Sherry Vinaigrette