Sometimes the best dishes are planned last minute. I just have so much fun as I search through my fridge and the cabinets, see the ingredients I have, and put my creative cap on. The other night, it was about 7:45 pm and I was looking at the ingredients that were available. I always have a bag of frozen shrimp from Whole Foods. Yes, I love fresh shrimp but do not always have time to run out and get it. But trust me, if frozen shrimp is thawed out the right way, and only cooked until pink, it really tastes good. So I had the shrimp, then I saw the beautiful fennel bulb I bought, beets, bacon, and of course lemons. In only about 15 minutes, my boyfriend and I had a good looking bowl of shrimp. These ingredients married together beautifully.
This is what you need for two hearty bowls.
20 medium sized shrimp (deveined, tail off)
2 bacon strips chopped
1 lemon zest & juiced
1 fennel bulb chopped (only the bottom of fennel is used)
2 medium sized beets sliced or 1 can of beets
3 tbs Extra virgin olive oil
3 tbs sherry
1 pinch salt & pepper
parsley for garnish
Preheat oven to 375
How to Thaw Frozen Shrimp: Place shrimp in a strainer in the sink. Put on the cold water and rinse until thawed. Be sure to move the shrimp around from time to time to be certain that cold water touches all shrimp. This takes about 10 minutes. When thawed, remove tails with fingers and dry shrimp with a paper towel.
As the shrimp are being thawed, put the sliced beets on a baking sheet with 1 tbs of oil and put in the 375 oven to roast for about 10 minutes. At the same time, cook the chopped bacon in a pan. Do not add oil when cooking bacon (it already has enough fat). After bacon is cooked, remove from heat. Drain some of the excess oil. Add a tbs of oil and the chopped fennel in the same pan and cook until tender (5-8 minutes). Now, add the shrimp evenly on pan, be sure that all shrimp are leveled. Add the sherry, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Turn the shrimp when pink on the bottom. Add the roasted beets, lemon zest and cook until both sides of shrimp are pink. Taste and adjust salt or pepper if needed. Serve in a bowl with the broth and top with parsley.
How easy does that sound? It was so simple, pretty and delicious.
