Shrimp marinades next door

Remember that I told you about how, without wanting to, I often inadvertently take a peak into a neighbor’s kitchen as their meal permeates not only my house, but the entire neighborhood as well?

Never would I have imagined that one day, I would be cooking in said kitchen. It never occurred to me that, at some point, my cooking would not just permeate a neighbor’s kitchen through an open window or door, but that I would be the one standing in there creating those bold aromas that would fill the air and probably find their way into my own home.

Yet, that is exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago.

It was the Friday before our five day Mardi Gras weekend. My colleagues and I had decided to prepare a feast at the office before taking off.

Haitian beignets, chicken marinades and shrimp marinades were to be featured on the menu.

Since beignets are as heavenly when they are cold as they are when they are hot, we had agreed to fry them in advance at home. The marinads required different logistics, however. They had to be consumed hot and fresh. We would, therefore, be frying them at the office right before lunchtime. At least, that’s how we thought we would proceed.

Unfortunately, when the time came to drop our chicken and seafood batter by the spoonful into our boiling oil, our stove decided to take the day off. One of the two burners we were using quit on us. Needless to say that this was frustrating.

Here we were, two different frying batters in hand with one burner and no way to quickly prepare our heavenly bites. We were starving.

At first, we debated over frying both types of marinad in the same pan; an idea we quickly gave up on. Frying the chicken and shrimp marinades in the same oil didn’t sound too appealing. We simply could not take the chance of compromising the flavors we had worked so hard to achieve.

We were left with no other choice but to enter the neighbor’s kitchen and use their stove, not without a pinch of guilt.

We felt guilty because we were using their kitchen while they were gone; guilty because we could smell the aromas filling the air, and imagine that they would float there for hours after we were gone. And we knew what it meant to crave a dish we could not have, having partaken in neighbors’ daily meals through our olfactory senses without their knowledge before.

We imagined that hunger would probably strike as soon as they walked into their home, smelling the remnants of the feast we had prepared in their kitchen; a feast, which shrimp marinades recipe, I leave you below.

I hope you will actually prepare and enjoy those shrimp marinades, instead of simply eating them vicariously through my writing. I most definitely hope that you will not be sneaking your way into someone else’s kitchen through your olfactory senses without their knowledge. That would be unfortunate for those shrimp marinades are worth the effort.

If you are among those who suffer from seashell allergies, worry not. Our chicken marinades recipe is tailor-made for you.

As with every recipe on this blog, feel free to adjust the seasoning according to your own taste. My only advice is not to skip the baking soda in the batter if you want fluffy and light marinades. Trust me. I speak from experience. Enjoy!

Ingredients

  • 1lb of shrimp
  • 1 garlic head
  • 1 onion
  • 2 piment bouc (or to taste)
  • Fresh Thyme
  • Fresh Parsley
  • Salt & Pepper

Pâte à frire

  • 1½ cup of flour
  • 1 cup of shrimp broth
  • 1 tsp of baking soda
  • Key lime juice

Instructions

Shrimp broth
  1. Peel and devein your shrimp. Season them with some salt and pepper and set aside.
  2. In the meantime, prepare your broth.
  3. Put the shrimp shells into a pot and fill with water. Add some salt and pepper, the garlic, onion, fresh parsley and thyme, and an uncut piment bouc
  4. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 30-45 minutes.
  5. Strain and preserve 1 cup of that broth
Pâte à frire
  1. Mix the flour and baking soda.
  2. Add 1 cup of the shrimp broth to the mix gradually so as to obtain a smooth batter. Add the juice of one or two limes and adjust the seasoning if needed.
  3. At this point, you can also add some piman bouc to spice things up a bit.
  4. Cut the shrimp into small bits and incorporate to your batter. Let macerate for a couple of hours
  5. When ready to eat your shrimp marinades, drop the batter by the spoonful in some boiling oil.
  6. Fry until your marinades get golden.
  7. Serve hot.
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