A Recipe by Stace

As I’ve previously said, when I cook, I don’t usually follow a recipe. If anything, I just use recipes for inspiration. Therefore, I also find it quite difficult to actually write down recipes for my concoctions because all my measurements are relative. I feel like an Italian grandmother in that sense. This will be the first time I have written any of my recipes down.

This recipe is something that I put together at some point when I was either in middle school or high school; I don’t remember exactly. It’s made of shrimp with garlic, lemon, spices, spinach, and tomatoes over rice noodles. I think I’ll call it:

Lemon Garlic Shrimp and Veggies Over Rice Noodles

Since that just rolls right off the tongue.

This dish has been a staple in my house since my family members seem to enjoy it. My has mom regularly asked me to make my “shrimp dish” while referring to this one, even though I make several different types of “shrimp dishes.” I guess it’s sort of an Italian stir fry, which gives me an excuse to use my wok.

The reason I use rice noodles is because both of my parent are gluten free hipsters. They have several of these “food sensitivities” and recently my dad has sworn off garlic and butter, much to my dismay. I don’t cook for them much anymore because of this and I guess it’s not really their fault that they feel better after they’ve cut foods out of their diets, but it does come at a cost–flavor. Cooking shrimp without garlic is like making salsa without tomatoes. I must admit, I actually do really like it with the rice noodles because they soak up more sauce than regular spaghetti noodles.

This evening though, my mother tried to recreate my dish and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was severely missing the garlic though. Nonetheless, I became inspired to do a recipe blog post. Also because I had easy access to visual content.

It’s harvest season so I had a bunch of herbs from my mom’s garden to include in this recipe. Fresh herbs are the best way to spice up your dish and make it more flavorful and refreshing.

Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary people, I present the secret recipe that up until today, has only existed in my mind:

(These are all approximations)

• About 1lb of Raw, peeled and deveined shrimp
• 3 cloves of fresh garlic
• 1/4 of a white onion
• 1 lemon
• 2 Tbsp of butter
• 1/4 of half and half (optional)
• 1 cup of chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp of fresh basil
• 2 tomatoes or one package of cherry tomatoes, diced (or sliced in half)
• 4 cups of spinach
• 1 tsp of fresh oregano
• 1/2 tsp of fresh thyme
• 1 small fresh sage leaf
• Dash of red pepper flakes
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 package of rice noodles
• Bragg Liquid Aminos (Optional)

The first thing I do when prepping this dish is thaw my shrimp. It’s incredibly important to cook with raw shrimp rather than pre-cooked shrimp. This will help prevent the shrimp from becoming overcooked and getting that tough chewy texture that is not so pleasant. You want your shrimp to melt in you mouth. Here we used shrimp that was already peeled and deveined which is much less of a hassle to deal with than tail-on shrimp. My mom opted to thaw the shrimp by filling the bag with hot water. I usually put all the shrimp I’m going to use in a separate pot with a lid and then filling it with warm water but either way works well. I let it sit for about 5-10 minutes and the shrimp will usually be thawed. Shrimp thaws very quickly and requires little to no preparation beforehand.

Next, put a pot filled 3/4 of the way up with water on the stove for the noodles and turn it on high. I don’t typically salt the water when I cook rice noodles but you can if it tickles your fancy. Put a lid over it; this helps the water boil faster.

Go ahead and chop that onion now.

I have a wok laying around my house and I generally use it for this dish. It just feels right. For those of you who don’t know, this is a wok:

It’s just a big ass bowl pan, you feel?

If you don’t have a wok, that’s totally fine. You can just use a regular large frying pan.

Heat said pan over low to medium heat. While the pan is still heating up, I usually use this time to chop 2-3 cloves of garlic, depending on the size. I have a Ninja food processor that I use to chop my garlic because A) I hate getting garlic juice on my fingers because it sticks around for DAYS, and B) because I’m lazy. I find the Ninja works quite well and gets the garlic to be a small uniform size. After you’ve chopped/processed your garlic, proceed to chop/process your herbs as well. Divide the herbs in half and set some aside.

When the pan has reached the right temperature, put in the butter or the olive oil (the healthier but less tasty option) in the pan. If the butter starts aggressively sizzling, take the pan off of the heat element so the butter won’t burn and be gross. Add the garlic and the chopped onions and saute for 2-3 minutes or until onions start to become transparent.

Add the broth to the pan and bring to a simmer. Then add the half and half if you desire. This just makes the dish a little bit creamy. Totally not necessary though. I only do this occasionally. Today, I did not.

Next add the juice of half a lemon. Save the other half to add more to taste later.

Season the broth with half of the herbs and salt and pepper. I do this because I think it helps the shrimp soak up more flavor as it cooks. Taste the broth to make sure it’s not disgusting.

Now would be a good time to add the shrimp.

Cook the shrimp until they fully turn pink and the tails begin to curl slightly. 7-ish minutes? Taste it. The shrimp should be very tender and easily chew-able. If the texture is tough, you have overcooked them which is quite a shame but not the end of the world. After tasting the shrimp, adjust your seasonings accordingly. Add more lemon, basil, oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, if needed. I like my shrimp to have a strong basil flavor. Remove the pan from the heating element so the shrimp doesn’t keep cooking.

At this point, your noodle water should be boiling. Turn your pot down to medium heat and add the rice noodles. Turning your heat down should help to prevent the water from boiling over. Your water should still maintain a rolling boil. If the water stops boiling, put a cover over the pot to keep the pot from losing heat and turn the heat up only slightly. TBH, I haven’t totally mastered the art of keeping my water from boiling over and I can’t say that any of these techniques actually work but they’re definitely worth a shot. Stir the noodles and cook them until they are just past al dente. Drain the water from the noodles when they are ready and run them under water to remove the grainy residue that rice noodles always seem to get.

I’m horrible at planning, so this is the time when I would probably chop my tomatoes. My mom had fresh ones from her garden that were starting to get old. The best way to use old tomatoes is to cook them. This way they lose the really acidic taste they have when they’re uncooked.

Add the tomatoes and the spinach to the shrimp and return the pan to the element over low heat. Cover the pan. You want to only cook the tomatoes and the spinach so that they wilt slightly and the skin on the tomatoes get wrinkly and start to separate from the flesh.

Guess what? Your food is done.

Serve the shrimp and veggies over the rice noodles. You can leave it just like that and eat it. Or, for an added touch, I like to pour a little bit of Bragg Liquid Aminos over the shrimp. Liquid Aminos has a very particular salty flavor that is kind of hard to describe, but I have always used it growing up as a substitute for soy sauce, even though it tastes nothing like it. Just a family quirk I think.

Enjoy!