Scampi with Sherry and Lavender

Many people use lavender – as perfume, or bathing, or a variety of other things, but have you ever considered using it as a seasoning?

Lavender is part of the same family as rosemary, and as such, generally works fine in any dishes where rosemary can also be used.  It has a strong, sweet but a little harsh scent (familiar to most if not all).  A small caution for using lavender in food – it can turn slightly bitter if you go too generously with it.  Use the same guideline as you would with hot spices – try a little and gradually increase the amount if you feel it’s not enough.  On the other hand, because of how strong the fragrance is, a little really does go a long way.  There is no need to pour it on by the teaspoonful – a few dried flowers scattered over your meal do more than enough to impart the flavor.

This is a dish of giant prawns in which I incidentally decided to use up some slightly-softening tomatoes and a bit of sourdough bread from the day before which was going slightly stale.  The reference to “scampi” is not in terms of what species of crustacean I use, but the American prawn or shrimp dish, of which this is a more robust variation.

It takes nearly no time, tastes fantastic and uses up leftovers all at the same time.  It can go really well paired with a salad of some sort of bitter greens such as baby leaf salad or arugula, but it’s just fine as it is on its own as well.

What you need (feeds 2):

• 8-12 giant prawns or 300g tiger or whiteleg prawns (the commonly sold varieties), shell cut on top, and deveined.
• 2 tomatoes
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• Pinch of red chili flakes
• Pinch of dried culinary lavender buds. Note: when buying lavender, please make sure it’s untreated and suitable for consumption.  Spice shops and gift shops in botanical gardens will frequently stock it, but I am sure it is possible to get culinary-grade lavender on the net as well.
• 75ml sherry (not sweet, I use Amontillado)
• Sea salt to taste
• 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• A few slices of sourdough or other crusty bread with strong crumb (somewhat stale ok).  Really, you can probably do this well with just about any decent bread, but for the love of little green apples, please, please don’t try this with the insipid white spongy bagged … stuff (I hesitate to call that bread), it will disintegrate on contact with liquids and you will get disgusting mush.
• Some chopped flat-leaf parsley to decorate (entirely optional).

What to do:

• Drain your defrosted and deveined prawns in a colander.
• Preheat broiler (top grill) of your oven to 220°C.
• Blitz garlic in a food processor to small shreds.  Add tomatoes and blitz to a coarse slurry.
• Add sea salt, chili, lavender buds, sherry, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of olive oil, and blend to combine.
• Place your prawns in a bowl, pour over the sauce you’ve just mixed, and swish around to combine.  Ensure all prawns are at least moistened by the sauce.
• In the meantime, cut up the bread – reserve a few of the nicer slices for toasting and cut the rest up into 2-3 fingers lengthwise each.  Drizzle the slices reserved for toasting with the remaining olive oil on both sized (use more if needed) and allow to rest.
• Pour the prawns and sauce into a ceramic or glass baking dish and spread out into a single layer.  Add the cut-up fingers of bread at a tilt (close to horizonal) in a sort of a falling-domino pattern around the edges of the dish, submerging the edges of them in the sauce.
• Place a non-stick frying pan on medium-high heat to preheat.
• Place the prawn dish under broiler (about 2nd rack from the top of the oven) and cook until the prawns are red and curled up, with edges beginning to char lightly.  The time will depend on your oven, how far the rack is in it, and how large your prawns were, but at a guess, they can be ready in as little as 10 minutes or as much as 20 (my giant ones took a while).
• While the prawns cook, lightly toast the reserved drizzled-with-oil bread slices in the pan and arrange them on plates.  Sprinkly with flaked sea salt and some lavender buds if desired.
• When the prawns are ready, remove from oven and plate the prawns and the sauced bread quickly.  You can sprinkle them with a little chopped parsley if you like the look of greens among all of that gold and red, but I was happy with it as-is, with a few piercingly purple-blue lavender buds scattered on top.

Black tea with a touch of honey or coffee will work equally well with this.  Or, if doing this for dinner, a crisp white wine would work really well too.  The sauce, for the record, tastes utterly amazing and the toasted sourdough is great for sopping it up after the prawns are all gone.  Just thought you should know.  ;)

Scampi – Glorious With Garlic!

When I lived in the United States, it was in the mainland city of Saint Louis, and nowhere near a sea coast.  However, Americans are practical sorts, and where’s a will (and demand), there’s a way – and so there was excellent seafood offered in many restaurants around town.  One of my most favorite dishes to eat – back then, and to this day – is a dish Americans call “Shrimp Scampi“.

Shell-on Shrimp Scampi

Before I go any further, I would like to use a Wikipedia term here.  Disambiguation:  I know that the word “scampi” refers to a species of lobster, and not actually to prawns or shrimp, and I also know that in the UK there is a revolting tendency to make “reformed” scampi – also sold as “king prawnies” (note the “alternative” spelling – they are not legally permitted to be called prawns).  Those leftovers-scraped-off-seafood-factory-floor and food coloring are not, however, what I am talking about at all.

The real, gloriously garlicky and lusciously buttery preparation of real, fresh prawns or shrimp, is.

As with many popular dishes, there are as many shrimp scampi recipes out there as there are cooks who make them, but I have found that I don’t like most of them, because they overcomplicate the issue.  Really good, fresh (or at least defrosted) shrimp or prawns – either work great with this as does almost any imaginable seafood – need very little embellishment.  I love seafood in general – for its gastronomic and health properties, and because it is so easy to prepare, but the marriage of wine, butter and garlic in this sauce makes it simply irresistible.  And this way of cooking is both, festive and very very simple and easy.

What you need:  (serves 2)

• An ovenproof dish – ceramic or metal, large enough to hold your seafood in a single layer

• ~400-500g raw jumbo tiger prawns or jumbo shrimp (defrosted is ok), deveined.  (I like them shell-on as that makes them juicier to eat, but does make for messier eating)
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup (120ml) dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon dry sherry OR 1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste
• Chili flakes to taste
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme or parsley (can be substituted with 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves)
• 4-7 garlic cloves (depending on size of cloves and your liking of garlic)

What to do:

• Rinse your shrimp or prawns under running cold water and let drain well in a colander.
• Press or crush+chop garlic and put into a mixing bowl.
• Add your wine, salt, pepper, chili flakes (if using), sherry and/or lemon juice (if using) and thyme (if using dried) and olive oil to the garlic and whisk well to combine.
• Add drained seafood to the marinade and shake or mix to coat.  Cover with cling film and let stand for 30 minutes.
• In the meantime, preheat your broiler (top grill) to 220°C.
• After 30 minutes of marinating, pour the seafood and marinade into a shallow baking dish.  Add cubes of butter around the dish, and place in the oven.
• Broiler intensities vary, and seafood cooks fast to very fast depending on its temperature when it goes into the oven, so I recommend simply not leaving the oven unattended for the duration of broiling these – they can be done in as little as 10 minutes, though in some ovens it can take 15+.  Shrimp are ready when they have curled up, the shells or meat turns opaque and pink/red, and the edges of shells or tails begin to char (see photo above).  Sauce should be bubbling at this point.
• Remove from oven and sprinkle with chopped thyme or parsley (if using fresh).

Serve with crusty bread in bowls (to easier sop up the sauce with bread), or over some fettuccine or linguine pasta.  And if you’ve got some good white wine around, do, by all means, have a glass alongside this.  I would.