Sauteed Shrimp Chesapeake – A Recipe Review

It has been a really busy time at the Bunkycooks’ house lately with guests, so this post will be a short one!  Since all of our lives are hectic, I am sure that you might be very happy with that.

Just so you know, I have been ignoring the fact that it is Fall working on some delightful Fall dishes, but am still battling with having to look at pumpkins and squash for the next six months! Regardless, I hope to have some of these dishes and recipes out for you in the coming weeks! 😕

So that I could avoid dealing with the pumpkins, do something a bit different, I decided to respond to a Tweet last week by Gera at Sweets Foods.  (By the way a “Tweet” is a message on Twitter, for those of you that don’t live online like I do.  If you aren’t sure what Twitter is, I don’t have enough hours to explain that one!)  Gera asked if any food bloggers were interested in reviewing recipes for a culinary school.  Well, heck yeah!  That sure seemed like something fun to do, so I said sign me right up!

I chose to make Sauteed Shrimp Chesapeake, which was created by the Culinary School at Baltimore International College.  I did not take a bunch of pictures of the ingredients in the dish because we ate really late, as usual there were not that many!  Honestly, that is what made me want to try this dish.  There were very small amounts of each ingredient, so I wanted to know where the flavor was coming from!

This was a great time to review a recipe since I have company (as I mentioned above) and all of us have very different tastes.  I thought before preparing this, that there were too few of the veggies in the dish.  I definitely think so after making it and everyone agreed.  I think if you have more vegetables, that it would be very good.  It would be nice for each serving to have at least one each of the cooked vegetables.  We were fighting over the mushrooms!

I would definitely use olive oil or butter and not vegetable oil to saute the ingredients.  I used butter.  There is more flavor in olive oil or butter and is more common in cooking this type of dish.

It also needs more seasoning and moisture.  Although Mr. Bunkycooks’ brother thought the taste was okay, the rest of us definitely wanted more flavor and sauce for  the pasta.  A drizzle of olive oil over the finished dish made a huge difference.  We also added lots of grated Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper!  That saved the meal.

One way that you could add more flavor to the dish (without additional calories) would be to saute the shrimp shells after cooking the shrimp in the butter or olive oil and then remove them.  That would add a complexity to the sauce.

My other comment would be that the directions were not specific in some of the steps.  I made a few additions and what I thought would be helpful to someone preparing the recipe.

I would say that overall, this dish would be great if you are watching calories and fat.  It would be a nice weeknight meal.  However, I would probably not serve this to company as the flavors were very light and simple and I prefer richer dishes when having company so that they can share in all the calories with us!

The original recipe is below.  I have put my changes/additions in bold.

Thank you to Gera for mentioning this chance to review a recipe and to the Culinary School at Baltimore International College for allowing me to do it.

Print Recipe

Sauteed Shrimp Chesapeake

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

12 each shrimp, 16-20 count, cleaned and deveined. I used 20 shrimp.
1 teaspoon garlic, chopped I suggest using 2 teaspoons chopped garlic.
1/4 cup broccoli florets, blanched I suggest using 3/4 cup broccoli florets, blanched.
1/4 cup cherry tomatoes, halved I suggest I suggest using 3/4 cup cherry tomatoes, halved.
1/4 cup mushrooms, sliced I suggest using 3/4 cup mushrooms, sliced.
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or butter 4 Tablespoons olive oil or unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, ground 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme leaves, whole 1 teaspoon thyme leaves, whole
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seafood seasoning 1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon parsley, chopped 1 teaspoon parsley, chopped, plus more for garnish
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese, grated 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus lots more for serving
2 ounces white wine 4 ounces dry white wine
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/2 pound of cooked pasta (I used linguine)

Directions:

1.) Sauté garlic in vegetable oil, olive oil or butter until tender. This should only take a minute over medium heat. Do not brown.
2.) Add shrimp and continue to sauté until shrimp are firm, approximately 2 minutes. Cook just until slightly pink. Do not overcook.
3.) Remove shrimp and reserve.
4.) Add vegetables and sauté until vegetables are tender.
5.) Add herbs and spices. Stir.
6.) Add cooked shrimp and wine, deglazing the pan.
7.) Add Parmesan cheese, toss and serve over pasta or rice. Mix together in a large serving bowl. Taste for seasonings and top with chopped parsley and freshly grated cheese.

Disclaimer: I did receive compensation for the items that I purchased to prepare this dish.  This is my own opinion of the recipe and I was in no way influenced by the culinary school.