Hi Everyone! Jeremy speaking. (I’m wearing a smaller shirt these days. Like it?) Memorial day is a time for remembrance, honor and outdoor cooking. With that storm we had on Friday night, we had no chance to fire up the grill. We decided to go with shrimp – always a good option, one of Lauren’s favorites. According to health line, they are very nutritious – containing various minerals not normally found in most diets, like iodine. They are also low calorie, contain no carbohydrates, and high in HDL cholesterol, (that’s the good ones)
Jeremy took the lead this time with our mise-en-place. He has a keen eye for knife-cuts. We decided to wrap these up, so we needed red bell pepper, avocado and little cherry tomatoes.
I took on the polenta. It’s basically a porridge from northern-central Italy like where my family originated. In Roman times, polenta was made from a variety of grains, since corn had not been introduced yet to European culture. We added a little dab of butter and a few grates of Parmesan cheese to our water and cornmeal for that nice bonus layer of elegant taste and comfort. I stirred until it was a thick but smooth consistency. This served as a nice counter-balance to the spiciness of the shrimp. I don’t know about you, but my mouth can only take a medium heat spice-level.
We got this recipe from Jo Cooks. “Blackened” refers to a style of Cajun cooking. All it takes is a mixture of spices: cumin, paprika, chili powder, oregano, and brown sugar with some lime squeezed on top. The brown sugar is key here – it serves as a counter-balance to the intense spice of the cumin and chili powder, but when it is put on the heat, it forms a nice caramelized crust. Best of all, as exotic as it looks, it’s super simple to make. We let, per the recipe, the shrimp marinate in this warm spice mixture for a little bit so it could all soak in.
Yeah, I accidentally grabbed the COOKED shrimp instead of the raw, so we couldn’t achieve that nice crust on the little buggers. Sorry, Darling. Normally blackened shrimp are supposed to have a nice crust to them. These ended up having too much of a gritty texture on them as a result. Either we didn’t have enough shrimp or the recipe called for too many spices. It’s okay, Darling. Since they were pre-cooked, I was able to try one with the spice combo on it before it hit the pan. Mom’s Kitchen Rule #3: Those who help get to snitch!
Like I said, we wrapped it up at the table. There are 3 ways we know to do a wrap: Tortilla, Rice Paper and Lettuce leaf. 
First one up is the Flour Tortilla: A Mexican flat-bread. Ours is of the flour variety. This is your most BREAD-LIKE option. Some people like corn ones better.
Pros: It’s easily kept together, easy to find at the grocery store and holds the most stuff inside.
Cons: Ours were flour, so we could fold them up unlike those corn ones. This one doesn’t have the best flavor profile. It’s just about the same as having a shrimp sandwich with a bowl of porridge. We have the polenta for the “Shrimp and Grits” aspect, so it seems redundant to have 2 breads in the same meal.
Our Second Candidate is Rice Paper: We found out about this from when we did those summer rolls. It’s super pliable, but very easy to rip coming out of the pie tin.
Pros: Nothing falls out of here. It has a great capacity. Not much flavor to mess around with your inside combination
Cons: Rice paper rips like crazy. You have to prep these before you try and use them.
This new-comer at the end is what’s called a lettuce wrap: This is a trendy way to cut the calories and add a little roughage to your diet.
Pros: This is easy to grab at the grocery store or the farmers’ market. Nothing is going to alter any flavors because it’s mostly water. Most important of all, it’s the only one with a chance of crunch to it.
Cons: Where do I begin? Everything kept falling out during the rolling. It couldn’t stay inside when I picked it up either. There was no “Wrap” to this or nutritional value outside of “It’s just water inside”.
The winner for us is……the Tortilla!! YAY!
But as you can see, we have enough here for every combination possible. We didn’t slice up the lime and cilantro for aesthetics. Excuse us while we dig in with our photographer, once he puts down the camera and grabs a plate. (and I do my signature sneak-hug from behind)
