Don't Skimp on That Shrimp (Contessa's Ragin' Cajun Shrimp)

Howdy, all:


This week is a quickie review, designed to make your cooking life easier. I'm reviewing Contessa’s “Ragin’ Cajun Shrimp,” and all I have to say about this entrée entry into the dinner sweepstakes is:

Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler!

In English, let the good times roll!

Having tried and loved Contessa’s garlicky Shrimp Scampi, I decided to take their Cajun Shrimp out for a spin, even though the description on the box – “whiskey flavored sauce” – left me a bit discomfited. Whiskey is for drinking, not cooking; I’ve never found anything flavored with whiskey fit to eat…until now.

Contessa’s Ragin’ Cajun Shrimp comes in a 12-ounce box, claims to contain “about 3” servings, each serving with 170 calories, 10 grams of fat, 9 grams of carbs and 11 grams of protein, and let me tell you, those calories are worth eating. The picture on the front of the box is deceptive; it makes the sauce for the shrimp look transparent, a bit “buttery,” for lack of a better word. The sauce is anything but buttery in taste, transparency or texture. Think instead of a sauce more akin in color, consistency and fire to “buffalo” sauce on chicken wings…orangey-red and hot hot hot.

Yes – bizarrely enough, this dish will knock your socks off, burn your tongue and amaze your taste buds. It’s actually HOT. Not just “spicy,” like Contessa’s Kung Pao Chicken meal in a bag; it’s hot enough where I will tell you not to try to feed it to the kiddies. In fact, if you’re not used to eating hotter dishes, you might want to give this one a pass. If, however, your taste buds crave heat and shrimp, shop no further. The sauce is salty, hot and full-bodied, replete with the bite only real peppers can bring to the table. Plan on a side of rice or angel hair pasta to complement the (more than enough) zesty sauce.

My sole complaint is that the sauce made this dish a bit trickier to sauté than the scampi version, because the heavier sauce coated the shrimp thoroughly in the frying pan, making it a bit harder to judge whether or not the shrimp were adequately cooked. The instructions call for 3-4 minutes on each side, and I found that you need the 4 minutes on medium-to-high heat to ensure that the shrimp are cooked; I judged by taking a shrimp out and cutting it apart to see if it was done when I’d had them on the second side for 3 minutes (they weren’t, and needed that last minute). The dish couldn’t be easier; plop the frozen shrimp, which come already-coated in a bag, into the preheated frying pan or skillet, cook 3-4 minutes each side, serve.

What could be simpler?

Vector Graphic, Shrimp: copyright Miroslaw Pieprzyk, 2006, istockphoto.com