My husband has a system to get what he wants, and if you have a kid you probably know this system very well. He starts saying that the picture in the recipe book looks beautiful, then he repeat that 5 or 6 times, then he point that it would be a nice subject for the blog, and in the end of the day somehow you finish with all the ingredients in your supermarket basket. So I asked him:

Me- What’s that?

Him- just a few ingredients in case you decide to cook that recipe.

Me- Do I have a choice?

Him- Well…

So we bought a bottle of wine and I started to cook the shrimp. The recipe is from the book “Wine Bar Food” by Cathy Mantuano from “Spiaggia” in Chicago. I have to agree with my hubby the picture looks yummy, but I had some reservations because I’m not a big fan of Ouzo. Everything was working perfectly until the flambé part…. that’s when our problems started, first we don’t have matches in the house, then he had the brilliant idea to “soak” a toothpick with Ouzo (40% alcohol). Now here… (Correct me if I’m wrong) if you soak the “whole” toothpick with alcohol isn’t that supposed to catch on fire all the way? So of course I could see that happening and didn’t let him burn himself. 

Second attempt was tilt the pan over the stove flame, like chefs do in restaurants, no success here also. This attempt resulted with me (in frustration) cleaning the stove from olive oil and shrimp juices. And by this time he was far from giving up, he started to look around for pieces of paper to set on fire, which is when I decided to draw a line… ‘That’s it! Get out of my kitchen!’ Before I have to donate part of my skin to fix your burned face. At the end I just let it cook a bit so the Ouzo would evaporate, but then the shrimp was overcooked, and tasted like perfume, in short it was a disaster. Luckily I had some cheeses and cold cuts to save the night.

Flaming Ouzo Shrimp

So the recipe follows. Good luck! (Try at your own risk & Make sure you have matches).

Preheat the oven to 500F; heat a large skillet in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove the pan and add ¼ of the olive oil. Carefully layer the potato slices in the pan, slightly overlapping them. Top with slices of Jalapeno, garlic, and finally the shrimp. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with the remaining spoon of olive oil. Return the pan to the oven and bake until the shrimp are opaque throughout, 5 or 7 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and add the Ouzo. Stand back and carefully hold a lit match to the juices to flame the dish. As the flame begins to die down, squeeze the lemon over the shrimp. Serve immediately.

•  ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 russet potato, very thinly sliced
• 1 jalapeno pepper thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves thinly sliced
• 1 ¼ pounds peeled and deveined extra- large shrimp
• Salt and Pepper
• 6 ounces of Ouzo
• ½ lemon

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