Buttered Garlic Shrip and Homemade Cole Slaw

    I don't eat much seafood. I'm not sure why, it just isn't my favorite thing to eat. I used to eat quite a bit of fried fish as a kid... hey, who doesn't like crispy batter and tartar sauce? But even now, I opt for chicken or beef over fish. Over the last year there have been a few times when I've had fried calamari or salmon that I've really liked but it hasn't really changed my opinion of seafood. This past week we made shrimp, which is probably my second favorite type of seafood, right up there next to fried. Don't get me wrong, I do like shrimp quite a bit. I like my shrimp simple though, nothing fancy... So that's what I made - a simple garlic and butter shrimp dish with a killer side. More on that after the break.

The Cole Slaw

    Cole slaw seemed like an excellent idea when we decided to make shrimp to go with the white wines we already had. I'm new to the cole slaw scene so I wasn't real sure how to go about making it but one of my friends suggested trying a recipe that his mom uses to make an excellent cole slaw. Here's the recipe:
   1 medium cabbage: shredded, pictured on the right.
   2 large carrots: grated.
   4 red radishes: grated.
   4 green onions: chopped.
   1 teaspoon oil
   3 capfuls of apple cider vinegar
   3 teaspoons of sugar
   ½ jar of Hellmann's mayo: We used "light" mayo here, next time I think I'll try fat free Miracle Whip to see if it tastes any different. I've always been more of a Miracle Whip guy anyways... By the way, a half a jar of "light" Hellmann's is still about 90g of fat.

    After you've got everything into your bowl just mix/toss it all until it starts to look like cole slaw. Once you've got it all mixed up just throw the whole thing in the fridge for half an hour at least. The longer you let the batch sit, the better. The slaw will be crisper when it's chilled and tangier when everything settles.

The Shrimp

    The main course of the night was shrimp. I prepared my shrimp with a simple sauté of garlic, butter, olive oil and parsley. It was all pretty low tech, I placed all of the shrimp on the bottom of the pan which had a light coating of butter and a liberal amount of olive oil. After cooking for about two minutes, the parsley and garlic was added with a little more oil. The shrimp cooked for another three or four minutes, until the shrimp went from white to deep pink. Quicker and easier than the cole slaw, but still rich and delicious.

The Wine

    The wines we had with the shrimp and cole slaw were both Argentine Torrontés [1] style white wines. Although both of the wines were white, and made from the same type of grape, they were really quite different. The first Torrontés was from Doug Frost [2]'s Pannotia Vineyards. This Torrontés was tart without being as dry as other whites. My main complaint with white wine is that they tend to be too dry for my taste, I really liked the Pannotia Torrontés because it was different than what I was expecting from a white. The other Torrontés was from Crios de Susana Balboa. The Crios was sweet, almost like a Riesling, not like the Pannotia Torrontés at all.

All Together Now

    We plated the shrimp with a generous scoop of cole slaw and a slice off of the toasted baguette. The buttery shrimp went great with the cole slaw and wine. The shrimp had just a hint of garlic but plenty of olive oil and butter to compliment the cole slaw which was tangy and sweet. The wines were both fruity, the Pannotia Torrontés seemed to a little better with the shrimp rather than the cole slaw.

    I consider this shrimp dinner a huge success. I got to have shrimp for the first time in probably two years and I even made cole slaw... for the first time in, like, ever. The cole slaw ended up being the star of the evening, it turned out much better than I had expected. The shrimp went well with the baguette and slaw with plenty of olive oil and garlic. The wines were also I big surprise. I'd already had the Pannotia Torrontés before at a tasting but I had heard that it may not go all that well with dinner and it was intended to be more of an aperitif, but it was great with shrimp and slaw. The Crios was a bigger surprise because it was so different from the other Torrontés. It was nice having one tart and one sweet wine to compare and contrast between bites of shrimp. I'd suggest getting a pound of shrimp for yourself and picking up a bottle of Torrontés if you can, and if you like cole slaw... why not try out the recipe? You might enjoy it as much as I did.