Shrimp Boil
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Serves: 6
- Oil
- 3 litres/quarts water
- 1/4 cup Old Bay or Cajun seasoning
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 lemon, cut in six wedges
- 400g/14ozs. potatoes, cut into bite sized chunks
- 2 corn cobs, silks removed
- 1 red onion, peeled and cut in 6 or 8 wedges
- 250g/8.8ozs. smoked sausage (andouille if you can get it), cut into pieces
- 600g/21ozs. raw prawns total weight then heads removed, peeled and deveined
- Garlic butter, spicy mayonnaise and parsley to serve
Step 1 - Brush a large baking tray (27x35cms/11x14inches) with oil and preheat grill. Place 3 litres/3 quarts of water to boil and add the Old Bay seasoning, garlic cloves, salt and 3 of the lemon wedges and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes and corn and cook for 7-8 minutes or until tender. Remove with a slotted spoon and place potatoes on the baking tray. Cut the corn cobs into 4 pieces and place on the tray. Boil the sausage pieces and onion wedges for 3 minutes or until sausages are cooked through and add these to the tray.
Step 2 - Preheat grill to high. Massage prawns with 2 tablespoon of olive oil and places prawns on top of the rest of the ingredients. Drizzle with some garlic butter and grill for 3-5 minutes depending on how big your prawns are (regular sized prawns will cook in 3 minutes, extra large ones 5 minutes). OR you can cook the prawns in the seasoned water too.
Step 3 - Serve with chopped parsley, extra lemon wedges and extra garlic butter on the side. Mix 1/4 cup mayonnaise with hot sauce to taste and serve this alongside the seafood.
It's dishes like these that make me prefer eating at home to eating out. This way you can get messy, you can wear what you want and you can easily clean up after yourself. Having said that I have enjoyed eating out again after the months of lockdown. Recently there was one instance when I think we could have or should have stayed home. Valentina asked if we wanted to try out her favourite Nepalese restaurant in a highly desirable inner west suburb. She booked a table one weeknight and we met her and her husband Peter there.
Although it was prime eating period at 7pm the restaurant was empty. Valentina looked around concerned and said that it was usually buzzing with people and that she was worried if we could get a table as we were dining a few weeks before Christmas. During the whole night there was just one other couple dining in and two takeaway drivers but patrons never materialised.
The drinks came out and started with tall glasses of flat soda water. A dish was brought out that we hadn't ordered but we were hungry as there was a huge gap between entrees and mains despite the lack of customers. There were a couple of decent dishes but their famous eggplant curry lacked flavour and the food was generally underwhelming. They subbed us a different dessert and when we asked them why they had given us a different dessert they were dismissive and you could tell that they just wanted us to leave so they could go home, even at an early hour. I didn't want to say anything to Valentina because when you recommend a place you sometimes feel responsible for how the meal turns out (or maybe that's just me). Still the company was great and we had a good time.
Until the drive home. I started to feel ill while I was driving. "Do you need to pull over?" asked Mr NQN as I started to feel chills and sweats. I made it home just in time but was sick over the next few hours. I wasn't sure whether to ask how Valentina and Pete were feeling but the next day Valentina told me that they were both sick. Pete was up 8 times that night and was still in bed the next morning. She fretted and said, "I've got friends coming over tonight so don't know what to do- whether to cancel or not cause Peter looks dead!". We all recovered within a couple of days but vowed never to return to the restaurant. And our next catch up was switched to eating at home!
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever had food poisoning from a restaurant? Do you feel personally responsible for whether people enjoy a recommendation?