Creamy Shrimp Creole Topping
This is a very basic creamy shrimp creole sauce. In fact, you can turn this dish into a classic shrimp creole by dropping the heavy cream in favor of 1 cup of tomato juice and 2 cups of diced tomato. Double the amount of shrimp, and it becomes Shrimp Creole. This should be in every cook's repertoire.
Servings 6 People
Equipment
- cutting board
- chef knife
- fillet or boning knife for cleaning the shrimp
- measuring cups and spoons
- heavy saute pan
Ingredients
Shrimp Topping
- 1 lb shrimp, shelled, deveined, and roughly chopped
- 4 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp oil, grapeseed, or vegetable
- 1 cup green bell pepper, diced
- 1 cup celery, diced
- 1 cup onion, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 whole bay leaf
- 1 ½ tsp thyme, dried
- 1 tsp oregano, dried
- 2 tbsp paprika, sweet
- ⅓ cup white wine
- 4 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
- 4 tsp Tabasco style hot sauce
- To taste salt and black pepper
- ½ cup shrimp stock
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 ½ tbsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tbsp cold water (as a thickening agent) thickening agent
- 3 scallions sliced thin for garnish
- 2 tbsp parsley chopped for garnish
Instructions
Prepping the Shrimp
- Peel, devein, and roughly chop the shrimp. Reserve and keep ice cold.
Prepping the Vegetables
- Chop the onions, celery, green bell pepper, and mince the garlic.
- Measuring out the seasonings.
Making the Topping
- In a hot pan, add the butter, oil and bring them up to temperature.
- To the pan, add the chopped vegetables. Sauté for 4-5 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Next, add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant. To this, add the bay leaf, thyme, oregano, paprika. Stir in and cook for an additional minute or two.
- Deglaze with the white wine and cook until almost all the wine has evaporated.
- Add the chopped shrimp, Worcestershire Sauce, Tabasco style hot sauce, and shrimp stock to the mixture. Bring the mixture to a low boil, add the cornstarch slurry (thickening agent), and stir in.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and add heavy cream. You may need to add some additional cornstarch slurry due to shrimp and vegetable water content. If you need to, add it slowly and let it thicken to the desired thickness before adding more.