mulberryshoots

It’s the end of May and the weather has turned muggy and hot. So, tonight I thought we’d have a light meal of shrimp and asparagus rice pilaf. For the shrimp, I followed a recipe from the NYTimes by Melissa Clark. After shelling and cleaning the shrimp, I grated a large clove of garlic on the microplane, ditto, some fresh ginger root and zest from a lime. Squeezed half of a lime and added a tablespoon of honey with a sprinkle of crushed red pepper. The recipe called for cayenne pepper but I couldn’t find it. I spooned the marinade over the 8 extra large shrimp that I had prepared. In a bowl, the marinated shrimp rested in the fridge for a couple of hours.

When ready to cook, instead of heating up the oven to 500 degrees which would take about 20 minutes to heat up, I’m going to dot the shrimp with cold butter as noted in the recipe and run them under the broiler for a few minutes until cooked.

In the meantime, I have taken the tough stems off a handful of asparagus – and rinsed them in cold water. I’ll cut them in two inch lengths and saute them in butter with a chopped shallot until fragrant. To this pot, I’ll add about 3/4 cup of raw jasmine rice and stir in the buttery asparagus. To it, I’ll add about 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth and simmer with the lid on until the rice is tender. At the very end, I grated about 1/3 cup of fresh parmesan cheese and stirred it in. This may take about 20 minutes and I’ll wait for it to be ready to serve before I broil the shrimp.

Since I have cilantro growing in the herb planter by the kitchen window, I’ll squeeze the other half of the lime on the cooked shrimp and sprinkle some chopped cilantro on top. With it, I’ll make some mayonnaise dip – Hellman’s mayo whisked with fresh lemon juice. Yum!

P.S.  We just enjoyed this dinner and it was very tasty and a great combination! Grating the garlic on a microplane really brought out the taste in the shrimp – and the honey was sweet but not too much – and the crushed red pepper was invisible but also noticeable in a good way! This is definitely a keeper! Plus the asparagus pilaf was a great accompaniment.