Easy Paella-ish (with Scary Shrimp)

Turns out I'm as scared of cooking shrimp as I am about chicken. And here was dealing with frozen shrimp, which made it even scarier. What if they weren't defrosted properly, so didn't cook right? And we both got horribly sick and were found in the bathroom ten days later, with our heads in the toilet and our pants round our ankles, half-eaten by the cats?

The Technique: Defrosting Shrimp
The interwebs, as always, provided the answer on this. The consensus was that you just soak them in ice cold water (not hot, you don't want to start the cooking process) for about 15-20 mins, changing the water a few times. What's Cooking America has some useful tips on shrimp in general.

The Recipe: Easy Paella-ish

http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/recipes/easy_paella.html

I'm no expert, clearly, but this really seems like a fake paella to me (it was more like a risotto). And I hadn't realized that Everyday Food is a Martha Stewart thing - gack! (Apologies to any Martha fans.) But it tasted fine and, after all that panicking, the shrimp came out perfectly.

Will try a more authentic paella recipe at some point, though.

Thoughts/Tips/Mistakes

I used Portuguese linguica instead of the chicken sausage, because Jack is Portuguese-American and brought some home when we last visited his family. It has a pretty strong taste, so probably overpowered the rest of the flavors a bit.

Halved the recipe (it serves 8) and only did a few shrimp as we were going to have leftovers the next day, and didn't think the shrimp would reheat very well (would probably get chewy).

Pix


Step 3.












Almost done.