A Different Kind of Cocktail

"Light & Perfect" describes much more than the last post's summer-fashioned pasta dish, and I've decided to make it a trend around this tiny nook of the internet if only to demonstrate that lighter, healthier meals aren't necessarily less appealing than, say, the piece of chocolate cake in the fridge you tell yourself will either be eaten or go bad, and what good is food-gone-bad while the world's full of malnourished people? (As illogical as that persuasion may be, you'd better just eat the cake, anyway.) Or try something new. Behold:

Although shrimp consumption was temporarily devastated when researchers discovered they contain high levels of cholesterol -- one serving of shrimp will provide about two-thirds the amount of cholesterol a person should consume in an entire day -- a 1996 study by Rockefeller University and the Harvard School of Public health found that the shellfish did not detrimentally affect the cholesterol levels of humans, citing that although "a diet containing more than a half pound of steamed shrimp" per day raised participants' levels of LDL (or "bad") cholesterol, it also seemed to raise the levels of HDL, "good" cholesterol thought to help prevent the build-up of arterial plaque. Combine that with the fact that shrimp contain very little fat and, say doctors, you have a healthier alternative to the fattier meats you might instead consume.

Growing up I developed an aversion to shrimp, or, more accurately, an aversion to the only sort of shrimp I knew: boiled and served with cocktail sauce. Due to my dad's old and spirited affinity -- "These are perfect! They don't make 'em this good in a restaurant!" I'd always hear -- for shrimp, this dish was ubiquitous at family gatherings. During the holidays, tradition demanded we make what seemed like a holy pilgrimage to a seafood distributor other than our local supermarket, even though, as I suspected, the shrimp at any location were, probably, of a similar quality. Once obtained, the shrimp would be brought home and refrigerated under the false assumption that simply because they were not frozen upon purchase they had never been frozen at any point during their long, truck-bound journey from the sea to this greatly inland destination. (Granted, I couldn't tell the difference at the time, but I'm glad I can now make this retrograde criticism.) Then, they were boiled for several minutes in water polluted with Crab Boil, an overly clove-stricken concentration whose unpleasantly powerful aroma clung to the kitchen walls for days.


Eaten far outside the pungent, airborne spread of the Crab Boil, the shrimp were not bad; my dad's shrimp are actually quite good, but they're always the same. Each time, every year. Boiled shrimp, cocktail sauce. I really shouldn't complain since it took me twenty-one years to finally prepare something else. (It also took me twenty-one years to develop a culinary sense.)

Now, personally, I find that until shrimp are cooked the little bug-like swimmers are absolutely detestable. They're translucent, slimy, and some, judging by their plump, black vein (read: digestive tract) appear to have been netted immediately following a corpulent Thanksgiving meal. They're quite pleasant once deveined, shelled and cooked, and provide an interesting shape for presentation on the plate. Sensing this, I happened upon the idea of citrus-marinated shrimp served a martini glass:

Photo credit: ambientqueenie

Several months ago I threw this together in a last-minute attempt to diversify our usually shrimp cocktail-oriented New Years' gatherings. It's a very simple recipe, really, obtained from Epicurious and originally seen in Bon Appétit. And since it's close to a seviche -- a cold dish in which an acid (usually lime juice) acts to "cook" the traditional fish or scallops -- when I make it again I might add one half-cup of lemon juice, marinate the shrimp overnight, before cooking, boil them only until they turn pink, then immediately soak them again in the citrus marinade for serving.

Citrus Marinated Shrimp Cocktail

Ingredients:

1 cup orange juice
1 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup ketchup
1/3 cup vodka
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 pounds cooked peeled large shrimp
1 small red onion, thinly sliced (about 1 3/4 cups)
1 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

Method:

Combine juices, ketchup, vodka and hot pepper sauce in large bowl. Whisk in oil. Add shrimp, onion and cilantro and mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours and up to 6 hours. Drain before serving.