Make it simple, but make it new: marinated, salt grilled shrimp

Ragazzi, sometimes we all need to break out of what we usually do or know, and try something different.  Tonight, we are going there, with a dish that has strong Asian overtones. Also, this recipe includes a plea - a STRONG one - from Annalena, on an issue that is dear to her.  In fact, two issues: sustainability, and the need to support our workers at home.

Here, we have a picture of salt grilled, or roasted, or fried shrimp:

That's what we're making tonight, after a tutorial about shrimp.

Did you know that somewhere about 90%  of our shrimp come from overseas?  Maybe you did.  And maybe you knew that these shrimp came from farms. Lately, however, Annalena has learned more about shrimp that has veritably depressed her.

You know how you can buy shrimp as medium, large, extra large, or jumbo shrimp?  Did you ever think about the information behind those sizes?  Well, Annalena just assumed some shrimp grow bigger than others.  She was wrong.

What she learned, in a wonderful article in the quarterly "Lucky Peach," is that the size of shrimp is dependent upon infection at the farms on which they are raised. See, shrimp begin as eggs, and hatch as small, free swimming larvae (Think of "brine shrimp" if you have an aquarium background, or "sea monkeys" if you have one in comic books.  Those babies would eventually grow into shrimp if you let them).  What happens, on the shrimp farms (mostly in South Asia), is that the farm owners watch the mortality rate of the shrimp, which is always high.  If the shrimp are dying at a rate higher than they should be, it's because of infection, and they harvest the living shrimp and start again.  No one knows what causes the infection, but if it starts early in the life cycle, we get medium shrimp.  If later, large.  And so on, and so forth.  In the United States, we never see the "small" ones, which are dried, and sold in Asian markets.

This makes Annalena very sad.  It makes her even sadder, because there are American shrimp industries in the south, and in Maine.  Right now, Buddha be blessed, Maine has shut the shrimp industry so that it can recover.  And the fishermen agreed . (We can ALL learn from Maine on this).  Those shrimp are very small, very sweet, and could not be used in this recipe.  From the Carolinas down to Louisiana, however, fishermen and women go out shrimping every day.  And you CAN buy wild shrimp, rather than farmed ones, if you look. You don't have to look hard.  Fresh direct sells them.  Yes, they cost about a dollar a pound more than do farmed ones.    A DOLLAR A POUND.  How much did your coffee cost this morning?    Annalena, who trained to be a lawyer, rests her case.  So, please ragazzi, look around.  If you can't find wild shrimp at your local market, you CAN buy them on line, frozen (and most shrimp are frozen by the time you get them anyway), and honor Annalena's legacy by buying those.

Okay, sermon over.  Now, let's get to this recipe, which is a tasty one, but it does need some help. Let's go.

  First, a marinade.  It's a simple one.  For a pound of extra large shrimp (about 18-20 to the pound), you need a garlic clove, and here, you need to chop it very fine.  Use a small knife and you'll be okay.  Mix this with 1/4 cup of fresh orange juice.  Annalena wants to you squeeze it yourself:  it's easy.  Cut one or two oranges in half, through the middle. Squeeze each half, pull out the pits.  Measure.  If you have more than half a cup, drink it.  You also need two tablespoons of olive oil , which does not have to be your fancy stuff, a teaspoon of a hot chili sauce of some kind (Annalena uses sriracha, which she has probably misspelled badly), and a teaspoon of paprika.  Smoked is good, but Annalena still had the sweet stuff out from yesterday, so she used that.  And a quarter teaspoon of fresh black pepper.

The orange juice and the olive oil are essentially a vinaigrette here.  The other stuff mixes with them well.  Now, you add that pound of shrimp, which you will peel and, if necessary, devein.  Annalena has mixed feelings about deveining shrimp.  She knows that the vein is the intestine in the shrimp, and it's supposedly gross.   It's never bothered her.    If it bothers you, go for it.  With a lot of shrimp these days, though, the vein is nearly invisible.  As was the case here.    So, toss the shrimp, shelled, and deveined if necessary, in that marinade, and let the shrimp sit for anywhere from two-four hours.  Annalena put hers in a quart container and turned it every now and then, over a period of four hours.

Here is a picture of what they look like, after the marinade bath:

When you're ready to cook the shrimp (which should be AFTER you've cooked everything else for the meal, because this is going to happen REAL quick),  slice up a couple of oranges, and have them ready for plating.    Pour a cup of salt into a big, heavy pan.  Cover the pan, and over medium heat, heat the salt.  You may very well hear salt "popping."  That's not popping, but it's akin to the sound of breaking glass, as crystals of salt break down
 When the salt is hot, take off the cover, and put the shrimp down, in a single layer,

 and cook them for two minutes.  Turn them over and cook for another two minutes.  After one turn:

 Move them to a plate with the orange slices, and... you are DONE!!!!  Unfortunately, the salt cannot be reused:

But the final dish, served with some wonderful accompaniments:

The oranges accentuate the orange in the marinade. There is brown rice with toasted sesame seeds, and also, very quickly sauteed pea shoots.  When the shrimp come off the salt, you need to brush them,but to tell the truth, ragazzi, they WILL be salty. That's why you need acid, rice, and simple greens to go with these.  They are remarkably moist and juicy.  A close up of the split one, at the end of the plate, may show you this.  The salt somehow "cures" the outside, and helps to keep the juice in them - a common problem for shrimp cooking. 

Ragazzi, this is, for just about all of us, our only planet.  And whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we are in fact all united in some way.  Please do something to help your fellow humans, and also the environment. Do your homework before you cook, and yes, it will cost you a bit more.  Get your priorities in order.  We all must and ultimately, this is not very difficult.