Because I live on the gulf coast, I am used to having great seafood everywhere I turn. I could eat shrimp every day in every way… just like ol’ Bubba from Forrest Gump. When we have company down, we try and feed them the absolute best seafood we can find, and take them to the places with the freshest, most delicious seafood around. Greg’s mom is down for the next few days, so we picked up some Royal Reds from our favorite seafood market and decided on a fresh lunch to prepare with them. Most of the world have no clue what I’m talking about if I say “Royal Red.” Sounds like a baseball mascot or something, right?
Well, Royal Reds are caught off of the coast of Alabama and Florida in the Gulf of Mexico, and they live on the very bottom of the gulf. You can buy them head-on or headless from local seafood markets. The head-on shrimp seem more flavorful to us, we remove the head before cooking. These beautiful shrimp are larger than most and are cooked so easily — steam ’em, boil ’em, fry ’em…. they’ll turn into a deep red color when they’re ready, and almost already have a deep buttery taste. Once they’re cooked, they don’t need much work to be delicious. We usually peel them and dip them in clarified butter — nothing else needs to be done! They’re soft, juicy, and sweet, and the butter makes them seem like they just melt in your mouth like lobster.
These Royal Red shrimp are caught fresh from the deep gulf coast waters. These are boiled, and served on the side of the salad. They complement the bacon, avocado, and slightly tangy, creamy salad dressing.
But of course, we wanted to serve the shrimp with something a bit more spectacular to amp them up to the next notch. After searching Pinterest a bit, and stumbling on what seemed like hundreds of shrimp recipes, we found this AMAZING looking shrimp salad from Gimme Some Oven and we couldn’t pass it up. The chopped bacon, corn, and avocado caught my eye and her pictures looked so vibrant, colorful, and TASTY (click to take a look at her original recipe.. and drool away)!
I made the Pesto-Buttermilk dressing first. Greg wanted something with a little bit of bite. A creamy, Caesar-like dressing for our shrimp salad, but the buttermilk pesto dressing from this recipe was simple and worth a try. I made my own pesto because I had the ingredients on-hand, and wanted to use some basil from our little basil plant we keep in the house. I only had about 2 tablespoons of pine nuts, so I used half pine nuts and half walnuts for my pesto. If you want to make YOUR own pesto, click here for my Basil-Pesto recipe. WE ALL approved of this amazing dressing. Substitute ALL of the mayo for Greek yogurt make a bit healthier if you want.
I made my own pesto by blending 2 cups packed fresh basil leaves, 3 cloves garlic, 2 tablespoons pine nuts, 2 tablespoons walnuts, 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in 1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino cheese. Pulse your dry ingredients first to chop em all up, then add the olive oil at the end to get your desired texture.
To make the dressing, whisk together 4 tablespoons pesto, 1 minced shallot, 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 1/4 cup Greek yogurt, and 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.
Trim your kernels off of the corn cobs, and toss them into a hot pan to dry roast them for 6-8 minutes until they start getting some nice, dark crisp spots. Once cooked, remove from pan and use the same pan for your bacon slices. Cook until it gets nice and crispy — you know how you like your bacon! You may then cook your shrimp in the bacon grease, or simultaneously boil the shrimp anytime before they are ready to be served. The Royal Reds I used will boil to perfection in 5-6 minutes over a rolling boil.
Dry Roast: Cook without any type of oil or fat. Stir often so nothing burns!
Assemble the salad by tossing romaine lettuce leaves with your pesto buttermilk dressing (or drizzling the dressing over the top). Then top with crisp cooked bacon, avocado, dry-roasted corn, shredded Fontina cheese, and your beautiful steamed shrimp.
Our lunch spread. We served the salad like a mini-salad bar. Add whatever toppings you want! [WE ALL ADDED THEM ALL — AND went back for seconds!]
- Cut corn kernels from corn cobs and toss into a hot pan. Dry roast until corn gets some black char (about 6-8 minutes). Remove corn from pan, and add sliced bacon to hot pan. Cook until crisp, and remove bacon from pan. You may then add your shrimp to the pan (into the remaining bacon grease). Cook a few minutes on each side until pink and opaque. (Or boil the shrimp until cooked thorough ~ about 5 minutes). Assemble by topping lettuce leaves with pesto buttermilk dressing, dry-roasted corn, bacon, avocado, cheese, and shrimp.
- Whisk together all ingredients and season with salt and pepper.
- Any shrimp work in this recipe, but we used Royal Reds because that's our local favorite shrimp.
Find That Square Plate on social media:
Facebook · Instagram · Twitter · Foodspotting · Tumblr · E-mail
Be sure to subscribe to receive a
|
|
Excited to share another awesome project that includes one of my recipes! This is The Great Big Book of Green Smoothies that's just gone on sale for only $5. It features over 40 Green Smoothie easy-to-follow recipes from some of the web's best food bloggers, and a picture to go along with each.
Click the picture to find out more!
View my other e-books HERE.
