I was getting together with friends for a middle of the week lunch; summer weekends tend to get filled up quickly, especially if you have kids, as they do, so a little get-together on a Tuesday was a perfect time for gathering for lunch, a but of wine (we call it “fruit salad”), and conversation. As luck would have it, I was working on adapting a shrimp salad recipe I’d come across at Uncle Phaedrus, Consulting Detective and Finder of Lost Recipes – which is a terrific resource for old, but still quite lovely recipes. My new fave Pineapple Mustard is based on one of his recipes.
I made a fair number of changes to the original, swapping out chilled French Peas for the broccoli; axing the artichoke hearts entirely (tho, I might add those back in for the next batch), and making a Rémoulade style sherry mayonnaise, instead of just stirring 1/4 cup of sherry into one cup of Hellmann’s.
Nice salad – and perfect with Barb’s grilled pork tenderloin tips and veggies!
Ermmm, the fruit salad was good, too.
INGREDIENTS
Sherry Mayonnaise:
•1/2 cup mayonnaise
•2 tbsp ketchup or cocktail sauce
•1 tbsp dried parsley
•2 tbsp good sherry*
•1 tsp Dijon mustard.
•1 tsp Cajun Power Spicy Garlic Pepper Sauce – or your fave hot sauce, to taste
•1/8 tsp salt
•Black pepper
Salad:
•1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
•1 lb bag small frozen peas, thawed
•2 tbsp room temperature butter
•1/2 tsp sugar
•1/2 tsp salt
•Baby spinach
•Arugula
•Chopped scallions
*None of that “cooking sherry” from the market shelves; a bottle of decent sherry will taste much better, and needn’t be all that expensive.
Whisk the mayonnaise ingredients together, transfer to a jar, cover and stash in the fridge for at least a couple of hours to allow the flavors to blend.
Add the shrimp to a pot of salted boiling water and cook for three minutes – just until pink and still curled up.
Remove from the water to a colander with ice cubes to stop the shrimp from over cooking while cooling. Remove the shells and devein, unless, like me, you bought yours raw, but already peeled and deveined.
Stash the shrimp in a bowl in the fridge until you are ready to build the salad.
Place the peas in a large pan and add the sugar and salt. Stir in the softened butter until the peas are lightly coated with the butter, sugar, and salt.
Add cold water to just cover the peas, then cover the pan and bring to a boil.
Simmer for six minutes or so, checking often to make sure the water hasn’t boiled off, until the peas are tender.
If your peas a nice and tender (and oh! so tasty), but there’s still a bit of water in the pan, remove the cover and continue to simmer until the liquid has cooked off and your left with lovely, butter coated peas.
Set aside to cool.
To make the salad, toss the shrimp and the peas in the sherried mayonnaise until coated. Keep chilled until time to serve.
To serve, arrange the arugula and baby spinach on a plate and top with the shrimp and pea salad.
Sprinkle with the chopped scallions.