Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Shrimp Alfredo?

Here is how my menus develop in Mexico. When I left to walk to my physical therapy session yesterday I was planning on stopping at the Chicken Lady's tienda. She has moved back to her original spot on Clavel. I didn't know what the rest of the menu would be but I'd start with chicken.

I peeked into the shop on my way, mainly just to check and see if she had chicken because sometimes, especially on a Monday, some tiendas will not have received their chickens for the day. She saw me peek in so I had to stop and talk. She showed me that she now has seafood on Monday. And also said that she would be dancing with her Indian dance troupe in the Jardin all day on Friday. I told her that I would be there with my camera. And that I would return in an hour for some chicken, but as I walked on, I started thinking about what I might do with some shrimp. A shrimp salad, a shrimp creole, shrimp and pasta.......tomato sauce or white sauce? By the time I left physical therapy, I had decided to check out the shrimp and if they looked okay, I'd switch from chicken to shrimp. The shrimp looked okay and I bought a 1/2 kilo.

Now on to Espinos for vegetables. None of the vegetables in front of Espinos seemed to go with my shrimp except for some beautiful red-tip lettuce for a salad. Mmmmm...... I looked at the pastas and decided on the bow-tie pasta. Okay....so now I was headed to a white sauce with the shrimp and bow-tie pasta.

I put the pasta on to cook, cut up onions and garlic and sauteed that in a skillet. Threw in the some crushed red pepper and the shrimp for a few minutes until they were pink. Took them out, added a bit of butter and some flour to make a light roux. Then I added milk and a dollop of crema. I didn't have half and half or whipping cream but did have milk and crema. I figured that the dollop of crema would add enough silkiness to the sauce.

I did not add any salt. I have found that the frozen shrimp that we get here in San Miguel are frozen in a salty solution. In doing some research I find that what is usually added is sodium bisulfate or sodium tripolyphosphate when they are flash frozen. Even though I rinse them in the shell and after shelling, they are still salty and usually they need no salt in the cooking recipe. Sometimes they are just simply too salty regardless.

When the white sauce had come together I threw in a handful of graded Parmesan cheese. Parmesan cheese is a staple that I always try to keep in my refrigerator. I added the shrimp back in. The pasta was done and I served the shrimp over the bow-tie pasta. So in a sense we had Bow-tie Pasta Alfredo with Shrimp.

This is another one of those nights that I cooked by the seat of my pants. No recipe. But when I started thinking about it today, I looked at some Alfredo recipes. While I was thinking "white sauce," I guess what I made was a variation on an Alfredo recipe.

2 comments:

Islagringo said...

Just curious what you have to pay for the shrimp there, so far away from the sea? We pay 180 pesos for a kilo of medium shrimp and 200 pesos for the large ones from our neighbor. They are frozen as soon as her husband brings them home from his boat. And are they ever good! Try boiling them in water to which you have added 2 bottles of beer and serve them shell on. Game on!

Billie Mercer said...

Wayne, I'd call the shrimp that I bought medium. I paid 75 pesos for 1/2 kilo. Don't know if my medium size are the same as your medium size but I'm sure your shrimp were fresher. I haven't tried boiling shrimp in water with a couple of bottles of beer added but I surely will now!