Top Chef Kwame's Pickled Shrimp

It's that time again. My favorite time of year - TOP CHEF is back on! Now in the past I blogged all the winning dishes from Top Chef Canada but this time I'm going to endeavor to duplicate the Top Chef US, roaming throughout California this season. I started with episode 5 since before that, very little attention is paid to the dishes themselves as the field of cheftestants is so large.

Episode 5 was the massive wedding episodes wherein 25 gay couples were pronounced wedded by Padma herself. The winning dish was actually a "burnt carrot" side dish but I don't like cooked carrots and I don't like the new "burnt" trend. I've tried it. It tastes like a mouthful of charcoal. So I opted for the judge's other favorite - a pickled shrimp dish prepared by Kwame Onwuachi. Kwame (give him a twitter follow) is young, talented, respectful and professional, unless Chrissy Tiegen is in the immediate vicinity, but who could blame him for that?

Here is my version of Kwame's dish. He gave me the recipe for the pickle but the rest was left to my imagination and what I could gather from watching the show and reading the blogs. My version may be different but when I tasted it - it is a wonderfully balanced dish with flavors that seem to strike several different notes as you eat it. But you're just here for the recipe right?

Ingredients: (4 servings)

12 shrimp or prawns (I used 21-30 count but would have prefered larger)

1 shallot thinly sliced

1/2 English cucumber or peeled and seeded cucumber, sliced

matchstick sliced red and yellow sweet bell pepper (for garnish)

Small handful of cleaned cilantro

small handful of chopped cashews

Shrimp boiling liquid 

Tangerine Nouc Cham for pickling

Tangerine Nouc Cham   (this Tangerine Nouc Cham came directly from Kwame - thanks chef!)

Ingredients:
350 grams Tangerine
130 grams Lemon
100 grams Lime
70 grams Palm Sugar (if you don't have access to this, substitute brown sugar)
60 grams Fish Sauce
20 grams Ginger
1 each. Garlic clove
1 each. Thai chili

Directions:

1. Place tangerine/lemon/lime juice into a blender with palm sugar, fish sauce and minced garlic, ginger, and chili.

2. Pulse to combine

Makes 1 ½ pints

Method:

Parboil shrimp in 3 cups water steeped with several star anise and green cardamom pods. Remove after they just start to turn pink and plunge into an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Immediately remove the shrimp to the prepared marinade above, add thinly sliced shallots, cover tightly with plastic and chill for 3 to 6 hours.

To plate, remove the shrimp from the refrigerator and allow to come to nearly room temperature (you want to serve this dish cool but not ice cold so that you can better taste all of the subtle flavors). Plate shrimp atop cucumbers and sprinkle with marinated shallots, peppers, cilantro and cashews. Serve immediately.

The sweetness of the tangerine, the sourness of the lime and lemon along with the salty fish sauce and spicy peppers are a simply amazing combo. The flavors are subtle but linger for a great finish. If you don't like cilantro I would suggest that a tiny bit of mint would also add a real pop to the finished dish.

I will be posting another Top Chef Dish next, since I'm an episode behind. Hope you come along for the ride!