July 24, 2014 BBQ Shrimp and Rice with Purslane

July 24, 2014 BBQ Shrimp and Rice with Purslane

I had bought a pound of large fresh shrimp on Tuesday when I went to Ta Lin ($8.95/lb.) that we saved for this dinner.

This is one of Suzette’s favorite recipes.  She uses Paul Prudhomme’s Cajun Kitchen recipe with his unique blend of seasonings and lot of butter (you can find the recipe elsewhere in my blogs).

We also made coleslaw and added the PPI Mango Salsa to it for an interesting coleslaw.  We picked a cucumber from the garden and made cucumber spears and stuck them into the coleslaw to garnish the coleslaw.

The result is a spicy sauce and the perfect accompaniment to dirty rice.  Since we did not have a lot of giblets, Suzette picked some of the purslane growing wild outside our kitchen door, which seems somehow appropriate for a Cajun dish and put into the boiling rice water when she put in the rice.

Rice is easy to cook, but for some reason Suzette is scared to cook it. 

For ordinary white rice the radio is two parts water to one part rice.

I usually season the water with something.  My old standby is about ½ teaspoon of Knorr’s dehydrated to 2 cups of water and then when the water boils, add 1 cup of dry rice.

Then reduce the heat to its lowest level under the pot of rice and cook for 30 minutes.

For brown rice the ratio of water I usually use 2 ½ parts water and cook it for 45 minute,

Wild rice is beef stock as the liquid, ratio of 3 parts liquid to rice and a cooking time of 1¼ hours.

Suzette’s rice turned out fine, although she thought it was still a tiny bit hard.

We scooped a pile of rice into pasta bowls and ladled shrimp and sauce on top of it and had a good old fashion Cajun dinner with a bottle of beer.

Bon Appétit