Idunno, it just seems that any food ending with Fricassee needs a bang (!) at the end. And, in truth, this dish deserves that bit of advertising agency language excitement.
First things first, back in the 1970’s the newspaper in my small(ish) New England town featured a recipe that I made and fell in loved with, which they called “Country Captain Chicken,” but which, in truth, I think is much more like a Chicken Fricassee! than the Country Captain recipes I have found since.
By the way, I have two versions of Country Captain already published on this blog, and they are both still favorites of mine. This version is basically my newspaper recipe from back in the day, while this version, is a touch closer to your more usual Country Captain recipes, and has the added bonus of being gluten free, so, bonus!
And there is that bang again.
This shrimp fricassee! is not gluten free, because of the canned soups used as part of the tomato base, but you could always play around with just adding tomatoes and adjusting spices and cooking down a bit more to thicken the sauce.
INGREDIENTS
•1 lb raw shrimp, cleaned and tail-off
•1 tbsp olive oil
•1 tbsp butter
•8 oz sliced ‘shrooms
•1 tbsp Sherry Peppers Sauce*
•1/2 cup diced onion
•1 cup diced celery
•1/2 cup diced green pepper
•2 cloves garlic
•1 (8 oz) bottle clam juice
•1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
•2 cups Cheesy Tomato Basil Soup
•1/2 cup Vouvray (or other white wine)
•1 tsp Cajun Power Spicy Garlic Pepper Sauce – or your fave hot sauce, to taste
•1/2 tsp dried thyme
•1 bay leaf
•1/2 tsp Seasoned Salt
•1/2 tsp black pepper
•1/2 tsp Aleppo pepper
*No Sherry Peppers Sauce? No Problem! Simply add a bit of decent sherry (none of that “cooking” stuff) and a dash or three of your fave hot sauce, to taste.
Note: I used frozen Argentinian pink shrimp, right from the freezer, so no thawing to deal with.
Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large pan over medium high heat, then add the onion, celery, and green pepper and cook, stirring, for five minutes.
Stir in the ‘shrooms and the Sherry Peppers Sauce and continue to cook, stirring often, for another ten minutes or so, until the ‘shrooms are nicely browned and most cooking liquids have been reduced.
Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two, just until you can smell it.
Stir in the clam juice, tomatoes, tomato soup, wine, Cajun Power Sauce and seasonings and cook, stirring often, over medium heat for 30 minutes, until the stock is nicely reduced and thickened.
Remove the bay leaf, stir in the frozen shrimp, and continue to cook for another ten minutes, until the shrimp is cooked.
Serve as you will. I think that rice is considered traditional, and I am kinda partial to yellow rice, so that’s the way I went, topped it off with some freshly chopped parsley, and we all loved it!