Monday, March 29, 2010

Magazine Monday - BBQ Shrimp

From Southern Living magazine



This shrimp dish looked absolutely beautiful in the photographs in Southern Living magazine and behold – the results of my efforts look pretty grand too, if I may say so myself. This is a perfect example of the saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. The shrimp part of the meal sucked. It was disappointing. It was an expensive lesson as I had to throw out all of that shrimp. Yes! I had to toss it.

I am including the recipe for you in case this works for you or if you like the flavor combo. First off, I followed the recipe to the letter but I am wondering if the cook time was too long.

The shells became one with the shrimp, making them impossible to peel. It was just frustrating….you’d pull and peel and get a tiny piece of shrimp and that was with shell glued on. Doug said he wasn’t fond of the flavor combination – the BBQ and shrimp taste.

So…it looked pretty. It was virtually impossible to peel. It was sloppy beyond being fun as the sauce coated your hands while struggling with the shrimp.


The okra and tomato salad was quite good. That one I could recommend if you can get fresh okra. As luck would have it, this was a night when we did not have anything else in the fridge as a back up. Grrrrrr.....so we ate quite a bit of the salad and lots of bread.



Here are the recipes if you want to try them.


Southern Living Magazine's BBQ Shrimp

5 minutes prep; bake for 35 minutes

To make cleanup easier, bake in a disposable foil pan.

Ingredients:

4 pounds unpeeled, large fresh shrimp

2 lemons, cut in wedges

2 bay leaves

1 cup butter, melted

1 cup ketchup

½ cup Worcestershire sauce

4 garlic cloves chopped

3 TB. Old Bay Seasoning

1 tsp. dried rosemary

1 tsp. dried thyme

French Bread


Three simple steps…..





1. Place shrimp in 13x9 inch pan. Top with lemon wedges and bay leaves.

2. Stir together melted butter and the next six ingredients. Pour over shrimp.

3. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees F for 35 minutes or until shrimp are pink. Stir every 10 minutes. Discard bay leaves and serve with lemon wedges and French bread.



See? Really easy to toss together!



This is what it looks like after it bakes. Gorgeous.



Ready for the salad?



Pan-Fried Okra, Onion and Tomatoes



2 lbs okra

½ cup vegetable oil

1 medium sized red onion, thinly sliced

2 large tomatoes, seeded and thinly sliced

2 TB. Lime juice

1 ½ tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. pepper

1 tsp. chicken bouillon granules

Cut okra in half lengthwise.


Pour ¼ cup oil into large skillet over medium high heat. Cook okra in hot oil in batches. Six minutes or until browned, turning occasionally. Remove from skillet and drain well on paper towels. Repeat with remaining okra, adding a ¼ cup oil as needed. Cool.



Stir together onion and next five ingredients in a large bowl. Add okra and toss to coat. Serve at room temperature.





Again, I can't stress enough that the shrimp may work for you...just not my cuppa tea. It was a pretty meal...and I loved the salad! If you try it please let me know how it went for you.

Cheers!


9 comments:

  1. 400 degrees, that long, of course they were over cooked... Shrimp is a five minute cook...

    I wonder if they actually made the dish, or just made it up without cooking prior to publication

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  2. So sorry it didn't work out for you. Always a bummer when you spend a lot of money on something. At least the salad was a winner - it looks really pretty!

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  3. here is my two cents, and you know I have cooked a lot of shrimp - if everything is at room temp, 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes should do, you can always tell by testing the shrimp (since its covered in sauce, it will be hard to tell when it starts to turn pink) - now, if you covered with foil, 35 minutes should be okay .... with this type of sauce, maybe peeling the shrimp and less cook time - I had a similar problem once with a heavy sauce, only the shrimp turned out grainy but I tried the recipe again, heating the sauce before pouring it over the shrimp and everything turned out great...oh yeah, the 5 minute rule would be right, if grilling, broiling or sauting but cooking in the oven with cool liquid would take a longer time....

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  4. Dave - My husband said the same thing. He thought it may have been an untested recipe. Itb was just so disappointing. Not just tossing it all, but I admit that hurt...but the beauty of the dish...and we couldn't eat it.

    Kim - thank you...the salad was pretty good. And at least the photos came out :-)

    Drick - I did not cover it with foil. Maybe that was part of the problem. It was a strange taste combo for us too. Thanks for the tips!!

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  5. I'd have to agree it sounds like too long of a cook time. It does look delicious. Just needs some tweaking. BBQ shrimp is served in many restaurants, so I'm sure maybe there was an ingredient you could pinpoint that made the taste "odd" for you and maybe leave it out. Maybe marinate in some of the sauce and reduce the rest for dipping and then broil or grill. And who doesn't love a light salad on the side. Yum.

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  6. Pierce, I appreciate your honesty. There are a lot of bad recipes floating around and it's good to be able to avoid wasting time and money on them.

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  7. Carla and Michael - Well maybe I will have saved someone else some time (and money) by posting the disasters too. I may do as you suggested...pin point the ingredients we didn't like...but definitely less cook time!

    Mary - Thank you, that is why I post the bad stuff too :-) Thank you for your nice comments.

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  8. I was just saying I wanted to make a good shrimp stir fry....
    This looks so so so yummy!:)

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  9. Wow, that shrimp looks so succulent. Love it! You know I've never made okra ... must give it a try!

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