Shrimp Creole

Adapted from The New Orleans Cookbook by Rima and Richard Collins

Serves 4 to 6

Read the whole recipe through before you make it.

For the Roux:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup light vegetable oil (I use grapeseed)

Mise en Place

Bowl 1:
2 bunches scallions, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons parsley, minced

Bowl 2:
1 tablespoon sliced chives
1/4 teaspoon mace
4 bay leaves
¼ teaspoon dried basil
6 whole allspice
2 whole cloves
2 pounds large shrimp, shelled (I don't devein the shrimp, but you can if you wish)
2 teaspoons salt
75 grinds black pepper
½ teaspoon cayenne
¼ teaspoon chili powder

To add to pot:
4 teaspoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons red wine
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
1 14.5 ounce can tomatoes (recipe calls for 1 pound, but this is the size I always find)

Put 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and 2/3 light vegetable oil in a skillet. (I use a well-seasoned black iron skillet.) Turn the heat on to medium, and cook stirring constantly until the roux you are making turns the color of rich peanut butter. Count on this taking about 20 minutes. Do it even more slowly - which means at a lower heat - until you get the hang of it. If the roux burns, meaning you have little black specks in it, you have to throw it out and start over.

Once the roux is made, in it over medium heat cook the contents of Bowl 1: scallions, celery, green pepper, onion, garlic, and parsley. This doesn't actually brown; you will start to get a very distinctive - and good - smell. Cook it about 4 to 5 minutes.

At this point, I carefully transfer the contents of the skillet to a Le Creuset pot - about 5 quarts in size. You can probably do the whole thing in a pot like a Le Creuset - from start (roux) to finish, but I have just gotten into the habit of doing the roux in my black iron skillet so that's what I do. I would not make the whole dish in a black iron Dutch oven because it has tomatoes in it.

Heat the mixture back up to where it was before, and add the tomato sauce, tomatoes, red wine, lemon juice and contents of Bowl 2: chives, bay leaves, and rest of the spices. Bring to a boil.

Add 2 cups water (do NOT substitute stock). Boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 45 minutes. You can cook it ahead to this point - even the day before you plan to serve it - and it will actually improve in flavor. Bring back to a boil before resuming the recipe.

Add the shelled shrimp, bring back to a boil. Clap a cover on the pot, and immediately reduce the heat. The original recipe calls for simmering it at this point for 20 minutes; however, you can cook it only until the shrimp is just cooked, about 6 minutes. Whichever way you choose to do it, at the end of the cooking time you pick, remove the pot from the heat. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Serve over a small amount of dry boiled white rice. It's shrimp served over some rice, not rice with a shrimp sauce on it.