Witchy Kitchen

Tag: shrimp

  • Amity Island Shrimp Boats

    Amity Island Shrimp Boats

    This year marks the 45th anniversary of Jaws, the sharky summer blockbuster that terrified would-be beachgoers in theaters in 1975. Based on the novel by Peter Benchley and directed by Stephen Spielberg (who was only 27 at the time!), the film with its iconic soundtrack and clever editing became an instant classic.

    There’s been some biting comparisons drawn between the plot of Jaws and this particular Pandemic Summer. Much like police chief Martin Brody does of mayor Larry Vaughn, we question the wisdom of opening the beach. However, if you’re avoiding the beach from either fear of sickness or shark attack, you can still eat like you’re there! Here’s a summery seafood dish, the type you’d be served at a beachfront cafe, ready to be devoured.

    While Jaws takes place in the fictional town of Amity Island, New York, the movie was filmed in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The summer colony provided just the atmosphere they were looking for – a charming vacation town whose tourist industry could be believably destroyed by a shark.

    Martha’s Vineyard is also known for its food, including fresh seafood dishes and even a signature salad. Shrimp and lobster rolls are popular in New England so were the inspiration for this recipe. While those are served on hot dog style buns, this is tweaked for the movie and served, of course, in a bread boat. The bread boats are filled with a lovely shrimp salad. It’s a classic New England style shrimp salad but the seasoning combination of sherry, lemon and tarragon make it extra elegant.

    The recipe serves 4, but can easily be doubled. After all, if you’re really hungry, you’re going to need a bigger boat.

    Amity Island Shrimp Boats

    • 1 pound shrimp, peeled
    • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
    • 1 tablespoon sherry
    • ½ cup celery, finely diced
    • 2 tablespoons shallot, finely diced
    • Zest of one lemon
    • 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
    • 2 heaping tablespoons mayonnaise
    • Olive oil
    • Two baby baguettes hollowed out (you could also do a French loaf. Save the bread scraps for bread crumbs)
    • Melted butter for brushing
    • Spinach leaves

    Marinate the shrimp in lemon juice and sherry. Let sit in the fridge for at least half an hour. In a large bowl, combine celery, shallot, tarragon, lemon zest and mayonnaise. Set aside. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan on medium and cook shrimp with marinade, stirring and flipping, until pink, about 2-3 minutes. Cook thoroughly but be careful not to overcook, shrimp easily gets rubbery! Remove to a clean bowl and allow to cool. With a slotted spoon, fold shrimp into to the mayonnaise mixture. Add a teaspoon or two of the leftover cooked marinade liquid for flavor, and to thin the mayonnaise mixture a little so that it lightly coats the shrimp.

    Heat oven to 400°. Brush baguette boats with melted butter and toast in the oven until golden. Allow to cool slightly. Line the inside with spinach leaves and scoop full of the shrimp salad. Slice in halves or thirds to serve.


  • Universal Classic Monsters Menu

    Universal Classic Monsters Menu

    The monster movies made by Universal Pictures in the 1920s through the 1950s are the backbone of American horror cinema. The films introduced audiences to iconic monsters, spun a thrilling shared universe, and inspired countless sequels and remakes. To celebrate these films we’re taking a trip through the decades and putting together a charmingly retro menu inspired by three classic monsters. 

    First up is a cocktail inspired by 1931’s Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi in one of his most famous roles. It’s a play on the champagne cocktail French 75, with a Transylvanian twist. The original drink was created in the 1910s but remained popular throughout the prohibition era when Dracula was filmed. To give it that Romanian touch, it features a fruity simple syrup. Romanian liquors are often made with fermented fruits, such as Țuică, the traditional liquor made of fermented plums. While this drink would be lovely with a plum simple syrup, plums aren’t in season so I made this with frozen dark cherries. The color is beautiful – of course a Dracula drink must be tinted bloody red – and the flavor light and sparkly. 

    Transylvanian 75

    For the simple syrup

    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1 cup dark cherries (fresh or frozen)
    • 1 cup water

    Bring all ingredients to a boil, and remove from heat. Let stand 20 minutes, mash, strain, and cool.

    For the cocktail

    • 1.5 ounces vodka
    • 2 tablespoons cherry simple syrup
    • 4 ounces champagne

    Combine in a pretty glass and garnish with lemon. 

    Dinner is a Monster Surf and Turf. The red meat portion is aptly inspired by The Wolf Man, the 1941 film starring Lon Chaney Jr., as well as 1944’s House of Frankenstein in which the wolf man is killed with a silver bullet. It’s a nicely pan seared steak, served with lemony compound butter silver bullets. The seafood portion is a swampy shrimp in green sauce inspired by Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Centuries of passion – for shrimp! – pent up in his savage heart!

    Wolf Man Steaks with Silver Bullet Lemon Butter

    For the steaks

    • 2 fillets (or cut of your choice)
    • coarse salt
    • 2-3 tablespoons butter

    I’m not here to take you to steak cooking school, but I’ve had good luck on the stovetop in a screaming hot cast iron pan and this technique from The Kitchn. 

    For the silver bullet lemon butter

    • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
    • zest of one lemon
    • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
    • generous pinch coarse salt
    • edible silver pearl dust (you can find this in the baking section of craft stores)
    • vodka or lemon extract for painting

    Mix butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt thoroughly. Refrigerate to firm it up a bit, then using a melon baller, measure out 5 balls. Gently roll them with your hands to round. Return to the refrigerator until cold.

    To paint: mix the pearl dust with a tiny bit of vodka or lemon extract to make a paint. Use a clean paintbrush to paint each of the balls. Allow to dry, and serve with steak or use it on bread. 

    Creature from the Black Lagoon Shrimp with Green Sauce

    • 3 cloves garlic
    • 1/4 cup olive oil
    • 10 chives
    • 1 handful parsley
    • 1/4 cup vegetable stock
    • 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
    • lemon to finish

    Heat oven to 500. In a food processor, combine garlic, olive oil, chives, parsley and vegetable stock. In a roasting dish, toss shrimp with the sauce and spread in an even layer. Roast for 7-8 minutes, stirring halfway through, until shrimp is pink. Finish with a squirt of lemon juice.

    Serve this classic meal with crusty bread for sopping, and a nice green salad. If you are noting that there’s no dessert…well there is! It’s inspired by 1933’s The Invisible Man. It’s invisible.

    Let us know who what you’re having for dinner this Halloween season on Twitter, Reddit, and in the Horror Movie Fiend Club on Facebook. Bon Appetite!

  • Hotroot Soup

    Hotroot Soup

    As a child I somehow missed the Redwall books, Brian Jacques’s fantasy series of anthropomorphic animals in medieval times running around adventuring, which is unfortunate because I would have loved them! I’ve started two separate books (I started the first one, Redwall, and then – record scratch – the dish I wanted to make is well described in the fifth, Salamandastron, so then I started that one) and they’re just so beautiful and immersive and I can’t wait to find out more about the richly detailed world as I work my way through the series.

    There’s lots of food in the series, which is how I because aware of it in the first place as Diana of Fiction Food Cafe and Catherine of The Gluttonous Geek were talking about it on Twitter. They both have cooked from it, and planned a #RedwallAugust event where we could all cook and share; of course I was all over it, I love that medievally forest food.

    Hotroot soup is a dish that’s sprinkled throughout the series, and is especially beloved by the otters. It’s described as being a pot of “shrimp and bulrush soup, flavored with watercress and hotroot pepper, simmering gently on the embers of the kitchen fire.”

    For mine, I built a lovely flavorful broth; though you can’t simmer shrimp a long time because they’ll be rubbery, the trick is simmering their shells for a briny shrimpy flavor. The shrimp are gently poached and the greens wilted right before serving.

    Green onions stand in for the bulrush, and the titular hotroot here is a favorite of mine, Kashmiri chili. It’s deliciously smokey and spicy, gives a gorgeous red color, and can be powdered – which would make sense as in the book the little otters have a hotroot soup-eating contest and are scooping it in by the pawful!

    Redwall Hotroot Soup

    • 1 pound shrimp, rinsed and deveined
    • 1 onion, trimmed, peeled and quartered
    • 1 carrot, trimmed, peeled and cut into large chunks
    • 1 stick celery, trimmed, peeled and cut into large chunks
    • 2 fat cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
    • 2 sprigs rosemary
    • 4 sprigs thyme
    • 1 teaspoon carom seeds (can sub celery seeds)
    • 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
    • salt
    • 1 tablespoon ghee, clarified butter, or butter
    • 2 green onions, whites sliced and greens cut into long strips
    • 1 teaspoon Kashmiri chili (can sub half paprika/half cayenne, or a combo tweaked to your spice level)
    • 1 small bunch watercress, roughly chopped
    • lemon slices for serving

    Peel shrimp and save in the fridge, reserving shells. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil with the shrimp shells, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, rosemary, thyme, carom and fennel seeds, and a teaspoon of salt. Lower to a simmer and simmer, covered, for at least one hour, preferably two hours.

    Strain and reserve the broth. In the pot, on medium, heat the ghee, clarified butter, or butter. Gently cook the green onion whites until softened. Add the Kashmiri chili, and cook for about a minute until fragrant, stirring and being careful not to burn. Add the broth to the pot and bring back up to a low simmer. Adjust seasoning if necessary. Add onion greens and cook until soft. Add shrimp and half the watercress (reserving the rest for garnish) until shrimp is pink and watercress is wilted, about two minutes.

    Serve hot with watercress and a nice spritz of lemon.

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