good­bye to the last fast food

You know, dear read­ers, of my strug­gles in the past to rec­on­cile my occa­sion­al wish to let some­body else do the work for din­ner.  It’s under­stand­able, isn’t it, once in awhile, to want to pay some­one else to cook?  I don’t mean a lus­cious fan­cy-restau­rant meal that you think about for ages after, mak­ing it OK that you part­ed with an insane amount of mon­ey.  I mean, food in a box, or a paper bag or a plas­tic wrap­per, or a lit­tle card­board boat.  You know what I mean here.

It’s your wish for a piz­za, a burg­er, fish and chips.  Dri­ve up, order, and slink away with your guilty treasure.

But then it hap­pens.  I decide to try to make the drat­ted thing at home and then the guilty trea­sure is no more.  I want my own ver­sion, from my own kitchen, made my own way .

piz­za: fresh crust with a touch of thyme and cayenne, and just buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la with a sprin­kling of parsley

bison burg­ers, served medi­um rare with home­made pesto and goat cheese

had­dock that was swim­ming this morn­ing, crisply fried in home­made bread­crumbs fla­vored with Pen­zeys Fox Point Seasoning

french fries to go with your had­dock, triple-fried in heart-healthy rape­seed oil

So per­haps it was only a mat­ter of time until my all-time favorite sum­mer “let’s have din­ner at the fried-food shack on Main Street” treat took its place in the Pan­theon Of Things That Are Even Bet­ter If You Make Them Yourself…

Home-Fried Shrimp

(serves 4 as a gen­er­ous appetizer)

1 pound raw deveined shrimp, shells off but tails on

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tbsps light cream

1 egg, light­ly beaten

2 cups home­made bread­crumbs, rather fine

¾ cup corn­starch (corn­flour in England)

2 tbsps Pen­zeys Fox Point Seasoning

3 cups rape­seed or canola or saf­flower oil (or enough to come up 2 inch­es in your high-sided skillet)

I do not have a deep fry­er (although I’m tempt­ed now, what with the had­dock, fries and now shrimp on my menu).  So I choose a wide, high-sided skil­let for frying.

Mix the but­ter­milk, cream and egg in a wide, shal­low bowl.  Mix the bread­crumbs, corn­starch and Fox Point in anoth­er wide, shal­low bowl.

Dip the shrimps ful­ly in the but­ter­milk mix­ture and then lay them in the bread­crumb mix­ture and turn over and over until they are as well-coat­ed as you can get them.  Lay on a cook­ie tray or plat­ter in a sin­gle layer.

Heat the oil until a bread­crumb dropped in fries instant­ly.  Place as many shrimps as will loose­ly fit in a sin­gle lay­er and fry on one side until nice and pink (per­haps 1 minute, depend­ing on the size of your shrimps), then with a wire-mesh spoon, turn over each shrimp and cook on the sec­ond side, per­haps 30 sec­ond.  Lay on a thick lay­er of paper tow­el.  Con­tin­ue in batch­es till all shrimps are cooked.  Serve, for total deca­dence with:

Spicy Creamy Dip­ping Sauce

(serves 4)

¼ cup each: hot chilli sauce, may­on­naise and pre­pared horse­rad­ish sauce

juice of ½ lemon

fresh-ground black pepper

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As my near­est and dear­est (as well as every­one I know on Face­book) will tell you, I was not in a cook­ing mood the night I pre­pared these divine lit­tle guys.  I was sick of cook­ing, it was hot and humid, and I felt hearti­ly annoyed that every sin­gle night, the task of feed­ing my fam­i­ly falls to ME.  Could­n’t we just go out for once?  But pret­ty soon the ther­a­py of play­ing with ingre­di­ents, of get­ting messy with creamy, bat­tery shrimps, of watch­ing as they turned mag­i­cal­ly gold­en and crisp in the oil, took hold.

“Come see how cute these are!” I cried, and John came right away.

“I was wor­ried about you, not want­i­ng to cook,” he said, “but now you look hap­py again.”

And that’s the rub.  I am hap­pi­est in the kitchen, turn­ing the after­noon’s haul from gro­cery and farmer’s mar­ket into some­thing sub­lime to eat, lis­ten­ing to my fam­i­ly say through a mouth­ful of food, “This is so good,” and know­ing that 99 times out of 100, what­ev­er you pro­duce your­self, with love, will please you more than tak­ing the evening off.

And guess what?  We treat­ed Avery to ice cream lat­er on, and I was thrilled to see that the “shrimp bas­ket” at the food stand was $13.99!  Why, I had paid only $7.99 for the whole pound of shrimps!  Grant­ed, I did­n’t get a bed of limp ice­berg let­tuce and a dried-up pick­le slice, and my din­ner did­n’t come in a plas­tic boat.  But you can’t have everything.

Since Avery does­n’t do shrimp (cheap date, any teenag­er boys who might be read­ing), the same bat­ter and bread­crumb mix (with a bit of Parme­san added) worked per­fect­ly on chick­en ten­der­loins.  I don’t know if I had to, but I dipped the shrimps and chick­en into sep­a­rate but­ter­milk bowls.  Then the bat­tered chick­en went into a 425 oven for about 15–20 min­utes.  Lovely

I think the only thing left on my tru­ly “Some­one else make this for me” list is sushi.  I quail a bit at the idea of know­ing whether or not I’ve real­ly got sushi-grade fish, prepar­ing spe­cial sushi rice, learn­ing to roll it all up.  But it’s prob­a­bly only a mat­ter of time.