Norwegian prawns in sea salt butter

“These are our Norwegian shrimps in sea salt butter from spruce smoke,” the waiter explained and wished, “Enjoy!” Gerd Möninghaus hid his emerging laughter behind his hand, partly because his wife was already taking notes in concentration. Enjoy. He chuckled softly.

These lines form the basis for my little recipe around Norwegian shrimp, sea salt butter and spruce smoke. They are taken from Stevan Paul’s novel The Great Glander. Of course, there is a lot of cooking, baking and drinking in the narrative. The special thing about it is that the dishes that appear are not inventions, but have already been cooked or eaten by Stevan Paul in exactly the same way. Now in the novel it remains with this brief description of the dishes. On initiative of the mairisch publishing house these ideas are filled quasi as Blogparade (that I write that again…) now by numerous Foodbloggern with life, more exactly with prescription ideas and – interpretations.

Shrimps in sea salt butter

I grilled my wild-caught shrimp, admittedly quite large, in hot fire in the shell and serve them in a soft beurre blanc made with a base of cold-smoked sea salt butter. A bit of asparagus comes in as a fresh counterpoint to the smoke, but also to the sweetness of the shrimp. Partially blanched briefly and tossed in butter, but the larger part was juiced and then reduced again.

But of course you can vary this in countless ways and according to your own equipment. In fact, the title of the dish perhaps assumes that the shrimp are smoked – rather than buttered as in my case….

In fact, I’ve discovered for myself that shrimp and lobster roasted in their own shells in the Beefer take on another much stronger and sweeter flavor. Depending on the size and weight, the crustaceans must be left to cook a little longer so that they are nice and glazed overall.

There are certainly more professional ways to add smoke flavor to butter, but a small smoke gun will do the job just fine. I first cut the butter into small cubes (to be able to smoke as much surface area as possible) and covered it with lots of plastic wrap. The hose of the smoke gun then leads into this vessel and completely fills the room with the spruce smoke. However, it must be remembered that in this type of application the smoke aroma passes not only to the butter, but also to the entire kitchen and the cook…

In any case, the smoky flavor then comes through in the fine beurre blanc noticeably, but not too dominantly. I am especially pleased with my discovery of the sensational sea salt butter from Meierei Horst in Elmshorn.

The idea with the asparagus juice came to me rather spontaneously and certainly still requires one or the other fine tuning in the execution. The yield during juicing is rather low, but the taste is extremely exciting. Surprisingly sweet and only with a very slight bitter note. I just reduced the juice a bit and didn’t season or flavor it further (aside from a dab of (unsalted) butter).

Ingredients

For four people
4 (Norwegian) shrimps, in my case from wild catch with each approx. 180gr.
400gr green asparagus
400gr white asparagus
200gr sea salt butter
150ml white wine
30ml white wine vinegar
1 shallot
Lemon
Salt
white pepper

Preparation

1. Put the butter in small cubes in a container and cover with cling film
2. Add spruce steam with a smoke gun and let stand for about 10 minutes
3. Chill the butter cubes (preferably in the freezer)
4. Cut off about 8 large tips from the white and green asparagus and carefully peel the white asparagus if necessary.
5. Juice the remaining asparagus
6. Gently reduce the juice to about 1/3
7. Sauté shallots in butter until tender and deglaze with white wine and vinegar, reduce stock significantly
8. Sear shrimp in the Beefer at maximum heat from both sides
9. Leave to rest in the oven (or warming drawer) at about 60 degrees
10. First blanch the white asparagus in boiling water for about 2 minutes, then add the green asparagus for about 30 seconds
11. Drain asparagus and toss in butter
12. Pour the reduced white wine stock through a sieve, remove the onions and heat to about 60 degrees
13. Gradually whisk the cool butter cubes into the stock until a creamy, thick Beurre Blanc forms. Season with a little white pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice
14. Remove the shrimp from the shell and wash off any black residue from the burnt crust
15. Shrimp also toss briefly in the warm butter
16. Place asparagus and shrimp in a deep plate
17. Pour Beurre Blanc
18. Add a few blobs of the reduced asparagus juice

In one variation, I combined the shrimp without asparagus, using only a very small dab of the now very much reduced asparagus juice and seasoned additionally with red Kampott pepper. Overall, this is a bit clearer and puts the main ingredient in the foreground even better.

In any case, a very good idea and a good starting point for further experimentation.

Good enjoyment.