Paper Palate

When the weather starts to get nice, my husband’s grilling hand gets itchy. Actually, scratch that — the weather doesn’t even have to be that nice. However, when the weather does get nice, his urge to grill is almost overpowering. I’m not the biggest fan of grilled foods (with apologies to Paper Palate’s sister site!), but sometimes I stumble on a recipe that’s just too tempting to pass up, even if it is grilled.

This was the case as I was leafing through the May issue of Food & Wine magazine, and came across Grilled Sour Cream-Marinated Shrimp. The article, which was primarily about the home kitchen of New York chef Suvir Saran, caught my eye because of his 60″ Viking stove. Once I had finished seething with envy, I read the recipes and was interested in the shrimp because while I’ve often heard of marinating meat in yogurt, I’d never heard of using sour cream before. Also the list of spices included some of my favorites — I adore garam masala.

My husband, ever eager to fire up the grill, agreed to have these as an appetizer one evening. Let me assure you that this recipe makes a generous appetizer. It would have been fine as a main course.

On a beautiful sunny afternoon, I thawed some shrimp we had in the freezer and mixed up the marinade. For aesthetic purposes, I scattered the spices over the peeled shrimp before adding the sour cream. The recipe actually calls for mixing the sour cream and spices, and then stirring in the shrimp.

After three hours of marinating in the fridge, we were ready to grill.  Alex threaded the shrimp onto the skewers and went off to do the grilling.

The result was beautiful, rich, tender, and garlicky. The sour cream made the shrimp almost velvety, and the spices mingled with the butter and tasted like something you’d get at a really top-notch Indian restaurant. I love being able to make things like that in my own home. We didn’t have the chat masala, nor the limes, but these were still stunning. If you are not a huge fan of garlic, you could reduce the number of cloves; six cloves is quite garlicky.

Grilled Sour Cream-Marinated Shrimp
from Food & Wine magazine, May 2008

makes 4 servings

• 1 cup sour cream
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon cracked white and black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 16 jumbo shrimp, shelled and deveined
• Salt
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 teaspoon chat masala for sprinkling
• Lime wedges, for serving

In a large, shallow dish, whisk the sour cream with the garlic, cumin seeds, garam masala, peppercorns, ground cumin, ginger, and turmeric. Add the shrimp and coat thoroughly with the marinade.  Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours.

Light grill. Remove the shrimp from the marinade and thread onto skewers; season with salt. Oil the grates and grill over high heat until almost cooked through, 2 minutes per side. Brush the shrimp with the butter and grill until glazed and just cooked through.  Sprinkle the shrimp with the chat masala and serve with lime wedges.

Note: Chat masala is a spicy, tangy Indian spice blend, and is available at Indian markets.

Pictures by The Modern Apron.