The bayou meets Brazil: Cajun shrimp and rice

Brazilian rice teams up with spicy Cajun shrimp for a satisfying dinner on a cold night. Recipes below.

Wintry weather can put me into a stew-soup-chili-hearty-heavy-food rut. And while I do love all these foods [and jones for them in warm weather], when I saw a lively sautéed shrimp first course in the January issue of Food & Wine, it sounded like just the break I needed—something I could morph into a satisfying main course. Light, but big-flavored with a lively kick of lemon. And when I turned up the heat a bit with cayenne pepper, it got even more interesting.

Because it was intended as a first course, the recipe didn’t say what to serve with it. My first thought was pasta. After all, with the garlic, lemon juice and parsley, this Cajun-inspired dish that was meant to transport you to the Louisiana bayou was coming dangerously close to Italian for me. But then I remembered the wonderful Brazilian rice that was part of the Brazilian rice and beans Patricia over at Technicolor Kitchen had posted here at Blue Kitchen a while back. That sounded perfect.

And it is. The rice is a nice, deceptively simple balance for the spicy shrimp. With the sautéed onion, it brings much more to the party than rice alone, and its snowy whiteness is the perfect visual foil for the colorful shrimp dish.

Best of all, this whole meal comes together fairly quickly and easily. Add a salad and you’ve got a dinner that blends cultures beautifully and delivers more flavor and appeal than something this simple should be able to get away with.

Cooking these dishes together. Before anything, start by rinsing the rice as described below. Then prepare the shrimp/pepper mixture and set it aside for the flavors to blend. Start cooking the rice. When it’s 7 or so minutes from being done, start cooking the shrimp.

Cajun Pepper Shrimp
Serves 2 [can be doubled]

3/4 pound large, uncooked shrimp [see Kitchen Notes]
1 generous tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon Cajun or Creole seasoning
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper [or to taste—optional]
1 medium red bell pepper, finely chopped [a generous cup or so]
2 tablespoons olive or canola oil
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1/4 chopped fresh parsley
Peel and devein shrimp and place in a large bowl. Toss with garlic, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper and bell pepper.

Heat a large skillet over a medium-high flame. The pan should be large enough to accommodate the shrimp in a single layer; use two pans, if necessary. Sauté shrimp mixture in oil, turning the shrimp once until just cooked through, about 6 minutes total. Turn off heat and stir in lemon juice, zest and parsley. Serve over rice.

Patricia’s Brazilian Rice
Serves 3 to 4 [see Kitchen Notes]

1 cup uncooked rice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
salt

Rinse the rice thoroughly under cold running water to remove some of the starch and leave it to drain in a colander or sieve. You want it to dry as much as possible. Bring a kettle of water to a boil.

Heat a little olive oil over medium-high heat and cook the remaining chopped onion until it starts getting golden. Add the rice and cook for 1-2 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent the grains from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Season with salt.

Add boiling water until it covers the rice by 1/4-inch or so. Leave it to cook down. When the water starts to disappear into the rice, cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Stir it from time to time to make sure the bottom doesn’t burn. You may need to add a small amount of additional boiling water, but do so sparingly. I tend to add some about halfway through and then a dot more toward the end of the cooking time.

When you notice all the water is gone, the rice is done. As Patricia says, you’ll notice there’s no longer the “noise” of water boiling on the bottom of the pan. Of course, I usually have the kitchen boombox on and maybe the stove vent too, so I go by time, not ear—about 15 minutes is right. Give it a taste and if it’s still not tender, add a touch more water and let it cook a few minutes longer.

Kitchen Notes

Cleaning the shrimp. There are various tools for peeling and deveining shrimp. Even better, lately I’ve been finding raw shrimp that has been split down the back and deveined. All you have to do is peel off the shell.

De-tails, de-tails. I don’t know what the deal is with leaving tails on shrimp these days, but unless it’s finger food, don’t. It may look more elegant to some to leave the tail on, but there’s nothing elegant about picking up food that’s not meant to be finger food or, worse yet, picking bits of shrimp tails from your mouth as you eat. Lose the tails, please.

What’s the rice amount? This recipe makes about three cups of rice. For us, that’s about three or four side servings. For some, it might be two. I cook the whole recipe, even for two people, because cooking smaller amounts is tricky. Also, this is delicious reheated and served with something else.

Also this week in Blue Kitchen, 12/19/2007

Quirky vintner leads the way to wise changes. Bonny Doon Vineyard founder and “President-for-Life” Randall Grahm is practicing full disclosure on labels and going green in the vineyard.

Good vibes and transcendent sax. When John Coltrane and vibraphonist Milt Jackson team up, the vibe is definitely good.