Crayfish Salad with French Cocktail Sauce

… or should I say Shrimp Salad with French Cocktail Sauce.  This was by far the easiest recipe.  Yes, I am aware that I’ve only done three.

Shopping for this recipe was a breeze.  All I needed was Boston lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, grapefruit, armangac (another one of Boulud’s expensive alcohol choices) and shrimp. I’ve decided chefs like expensive alcohol… and at the rate I’m going, I will have a very well stocked personal bar by the time I pass the CPA.  Woo, party at my house!

To get back on topic, I made the salad and the cocktail sauce ahead of time.  For the salad, I first peeled the grapefruit, taking care not to include any bitter white pith,  but not taking enough care not to avoid slicing part of my finger off in the process.  Yum.  That will teach me not to sharpen my knives on a regular basis.  I cut away the remaining pith and supremed the grapefruit.  Then I juiced the membrane into a small sauce pan and boiled until the juice thickened to around 2 teaspoons.  While that sat aside to cool, I made my very first homemade mayonnaise.  I even have a twitching bicep muscle to prove it!  Egg yolks, a little big of oil, and a whole lot of elbow grease go a long way.  Once the mixture emulsified, I added dijon, ketchup, Worcestershire, Armangac, the grapefruit juice reduction, and salt and pepper to taste.

The salad was very easy and only required some handy dandy chopping of avocado and tomatoes.  I assembled catering style by putting the leaves down on the plate.  This is something that is a particular pet peeve of mine, because I think it’s a tacky way to make food look “presentable”.  I only did it because Boulud instructed me to, and I follow him blindly into battle.  Once that was done (gag), I piled up my diced tomatoes in the center of the plate, followed by the avocado and grapefruit surrounding the tomatoes.  Easy peezy. To cook the shrimp, I had a gallon of boiling water and threw in a hefty amount of salt, a pinch of cayenne, the grapefruit rinds, a bunch of tarragon, cracked pepper, and the shrimp.  After about 2 minutes, the shrimp was just cooked.  I took them out and let them cool before placing them on top of my tomato mound.

Ingredients including Armagnac (far right)

Homemade Mayonnaise // Raw Shrimp (deveined and shelled)

Salt, Cracked Black Pepper, Cayenne Pepper, Tarragon, Grapefruit Rind

Shrimp Salad with Avocado, Grapefruit, and Boston Lettuce

Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce

I’m sure shrimp is photogenic, I just had a hard time making my shrimp photogenic.  The taste?  The best shrimp cocktail I’ve ever had.  Typically, I have the normal crowd around to eat my culinary experiments.  Today, no one was around to stop me from eating about half a pound of shrimp myself.  Holy cannoli!  Not only is this blog endeavor making me poor and fingerless, it’s also going to make me fat.  AHH.