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Monday, April 21, 2014

Cajun Shrimp Tacos

I haven’t written a blog in quite a while.  Various physical issues have been haunting me for the last few months, for one reason or another.  The latest was a pinched nerve in my neck, which led to tremendous pain in my arm and my wife’s backside!

However, I am now feeling better, so it was time to get back in the kitchen! 

We recently spent a long weekend in New Orleans, which is my favorite place in the world to eat…at least of the places in the world I have been.  I am a big “bold flavor” kind of guy.  For instance, I like French food, but sometimes I think I may be missing something because of the subtleness of the flavors.  Give me a hearty gumbo, or a crawfish boil any day of the week, and I’m happy.

With this in mind, I decided to try to use some of those flavors, and decided to make Cajun Shrimp Tacos, with a Cajun Remoulade Slaw.

The shrimp was fairly easy.  I just covered them with Emeril’s “Essence” seasoning for about 15 minutes or so, while I made the slaw.  I bought precut slaw, but the dressing was made of low fat mayo, low fat sour cream, paprika, cayenne, Dijon mustard, and cider vinegar. (With all apologies, I can’t recall what chef I got this recipe from.)

Then I cooked the shrimp in a bit of grape seed oil, about a minute or so on each side, while heating some corn tortillas.

The assembly was the shrimp on the bottom of the tortilla, topped with the slaw.



On the good side, I really liked my idea of the slaw.  My thought was that, if it wasn’t for the slaw, the dish would be all one note, texture wise.  The slaw gave a nice crunch to an otherwise soft dish.
The bad side was I used too much heat in the slaw.  My intention was to have something that would cool down the shrimp.  Emeril Lagasse actually has a remoulade recipe that I have used before, which is not quite as hot as what I made this time, so I think I might go that route instead next time.

Calorie wise, the dish was not bad at all.  Two tacos using small Corn Tortillas ended up 328 calories, 10 grams of fat.  I will make this again, but with a different remoulade sauce.


I would also add that we had some slaw leftover, and later in the week we made chicken paninis and put the slaw on those…it was fantastic!