Orange Shrimp

WHOA GUYS: I cooked seafood in my own home. I still need some more practice, but because it was my first try with seabugs, I will not call it a fail dinner. It was fine, and actually tasty with the addition of some chili sauce from the Super H Mart. My main complaint was that it was a little blander than I'd hoped. I think the problem is that I didn't add the chile, b/c I didn't have any. I'll include it in this recipe. I bet it not only adds zing, but brings out the orange taste.

I used Mark Bittman's modified orange shrimp scampi recipe:

1/2 cup olive oil
3-4 big garlic cloves, cut into slivers
salt & pepper to taste
1 orange, peeled and juiced (save and roughly chop the peel; reserve the juice)
1-2 dried hot red chiles
1 lb shrimp (I buy it cut and deveined, Baxter didn't raise no fool)
Minced fresh cilantro (1/4 - 1/2 cup)

Warm the olive oil over very low heat - don't skimp on the olive oil. There should be enough to cover the bottom of the pan, which should be a big one.
Put the garlic, chopped orange peel, and chiles in the oil and cook for a few minutes, over low heat, until garlic turns golden.
Raise heat to medium high and add the shrimp, orange juice, salt & pepper. When they turn pink on one side, turn them over and add 1/4 cup of the mined cilantro. Raise the heat slightly and cook until the shrimp are done (I used the "when the tail turns pink" method of telling when to stop cooking.) Garnish with the rest of the cilantro and serve!

I served with sticky brown rice. Probably would be very delicious over linguine or other stringy pasta.


PS I am listening to the new, inane McDonald's commercials where they pronounce words wrong to try to make them "fun" and rhyme with "latte." It's filling me with rage. Luckily, there are delicious smells coming from my oven, because of a recipe I kind of made up! Recipe to come soon, after we taste test it...