We had all the right ingredients for a light seafood citrus salad in the fridge...mixed greens, olive oil, real Florida Oranges (courtesy of my boss who brought back gifts from vacation) and a bottle of Pinot Grigio except one thing...no decent seafood.
We headed out to Whole Foods and found ourselves standing in front of the seafood display, pondering the next move. Normally we like to use a seared scallops or some flash-sauteed calamari tentacles, but WFM doesn't do fresh calamari w/ tentacles and the scallops were super-expensive.
Elizabeth had the idea to buy some less expensive wild-caught shrimp and try cutting them into thirds to mimic the curly legs of calamari. I saw something similar in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Meat Book where he sliced pork tenderloin medallions in such a way that they resembled calamari tentacles when pan-fried.
Here you see the three steps of how we turned the shrimp into calamari 'tentacles'.
I basically halved these 16-26 shrimp and then, if they were plump enough, cut each half into two 'legs'. Sometimes the shrimp were a little too small to cut four legs, so I'd split the larger of the two.
Next, we seared off the shrimp in an olive oil & garlic mix...as soon as the hot pan hit those little guys, they began to curl up nicely...Elizabeth had her 'calamari' all ready to go.
The salad was a simple arrangement of frise & arugula greens, supremed orange sections and a viniagrette made with the reserved orange juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, black pepper, sea salt and some ground fennel & tarragon.
We headed out to Whole Foods and found ourselves standing in front of the seafood display, pondering the next move. Normally we like to use a seared scallops or some flash-sauteed calamari tentacles, but WFM doesn't do fresh calamari w/ tentacles and the scallops were super-expensive.
Elizabeth had the idea to buy some less expensive wild-caught shrimp and try cutting them into thirds to mimic the curly legs of calamari. I saw something similar in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Meat Book where he sliced pork tenderloin medallions in such a way that they resembled calamari tentacles when pan-fried.
Here you see the three steps of how we turned the shrimp into calamari 'tentacles'.
I basically halved these 16-26 shrimp and then, if they were plump enough, cut each half into two 'legs'. Sometimes the shrimp were a little too small to cut four legs, so I'd split the larger of the two.
Next, we seared off the shrimp in an olive oil & garlic mix...as soon as the hot pan hit those little guys, they began to curl up nicely...Elizabeth had her 'calamari' all ready to go.
The salad was a simple arrangement of frise & arugula greens, supremed orange sections and a viniagrette made with the reserved orange juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, black pepper, sea salt and some ground fennel & tarragon.
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