When I was
young, my mother had a couple of favorite quick and easy dishes. Baked beans, hot dogs and canned brown bread
was one of them (I I never liked it much), and Shrimp Wiggle was another (I did
like that).
She didn't
make up the name. In fact, the dish has
a long history. One of its first
documented appearances was in an 1898 edition of the Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, and it
popped up regularly in cookbooks after that.
The main ingredient was (as you might guess) shrimp, usually in a cream
sauce. Most recipes, beginning with
Fannie's, add peas (canned), and the glop was often served over toast. (Some
versions suggest adding tomato soup or chopped tomatoes.)
The Fannie
Farmer recipe from the 1947 edition is this:
one cup shrimp, 2 cups white sauce, 1 cup cooked peas; combine, season,
reheat. My mother's version was slightly updated, but still about as simple as
it could be. You needed one bag of thawed
frozen shrimp (back in those days they were cheap; now they're running about $1
an ounce—ouch!), one can of Campbell's Cream of Shrimp Soup, some milk to
dilute the soup; put all of these in a double boiler and heat until the whole
thing is warmed through; pour over rice and serve. Doesn't get much easier, does it?
Oh, I
forgot one important element. My mother was a good plain cook but not very
adventurous. Her idea of dressing up a
dish was to add a dash of vermouth (she liked martinis, so we always had
vermouth on hand). You could add sherry
if you're out of vermouth.
This dish
can be recreated today, and I still have the double boiler. This is how it
turned out. (I used the cheapest frozen shrimp I could find.)
Ah, those
were simpler times, but things have changed.
In these days of fresh local food, the canned soup would be a no-no (not
that I'm slamming Campbell's—the label says it includes food starch, MSG, soy
protein concentrate and yeast extract, but not a lot of nasty chemicals). I'll admit that the shrimp, both fresh(ish)
and frozen, have been flown in all the way from Thailand or Vietnam, but I will
also note that the fresh ones cost half as much as the frozen ones. I guess airfare is expensive even for shrimp.
So I deconstructed
my mother's version and made a roux-based cream sauce, using fish stock (all
right, store-bought) and cream, and sautéed a few shallots gently, and lovingly
peeled the softly glistening shrimp and gently folded them all together, and
called it:
Crevettes Tortillants a la Crème
(in case
you haven't guessed, the "tortillant" is the wiggle part)
1 pound
fresh medium-sized shrimp, peeled and deveined (heads removed)
1 shallot,
finely chopped
2 Tblsp
butter
3 Tblsp
flour
3 Tblsp
butter
1 cup fish
stock
1 cup heavy
cream
1/2 tsp
tomato paste
Salt
White
pepper
Peel and
clean your shrimp and set aside
In a sauté
pan, melt the butter and gentle cook the chopped shallot until
translucent. Add the shrimp and sauté
briefly until they turn pink (do not overcook). Remove from heat.
In a
separate saucepan, melt the additional 3 Tblsp butter. Add the flour and whisk together, then cook
over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Pour
in the liquids, whisking steadily to prevent lumps. Blend in tomato paste (this is for color
rather than flavor). Cook over low heat for another five minutes. Taste for seasoning.
Pour the
cream sauce over the cooked shrimp and simmer briefly to combine the
flavors. Serve over steamed white rice.
Of course
you may dress this up with herbs if you wish, and canned peas if you must.
I served
both versions to my test audience (i.e., my husband). We agreed that the modern version tastes
better, but the earlier one is quite acceptable, and you can't beat it for
speed.
