Poached Shrimp with Aioli - Twist with Norwegian Family Recipe

Cooking shrimp feels so festive and gets me excited. This is one of our favorite ways to eat shrimp at home. Two of my husband's Norwegian uncles cooked shrimp for us like this on different occasions. They both told me that I need to poach them with loads of salt. A LOT. I don't see why and I can't find any other recipe online to use several cups of salt to poach shrimps. But I do listen to the wise ones and I always make this with an enormous amount of salt because it does not make shrimp salty or soggy or anything horrible like that. AND I love the reason they gave me: because they and the others back in Norway liked to cook shrimp in sea water. That is the reason. And I LOVE it! It just makes sense! 

Besides the large amount of salt, I also added a few herbs and spices as well to get the flavor going for my little ones. Make sure that the shells, tails and heads are still on!

(I took these shots on a baking sheet, but I just used them as a tray - these are poached not baked - just to clarify.)

I was happy to find a jar of homemade aioli that I happened to have made a few days earlier. A perfect dipping sauce for these shrimp.  This has become one of the items I always have to have in the fridge and it's so easy to make. I make a small jar of it a couple times a month. 

I added some sugar to it today to make the aioli sweet. The Norwegian uncles made their dipping sauce with mayonnaise, vinegar and sugar. This sweet aioli goes really well with poached shrimp. I'm not a big fan of cocktail sauce, so this is a great alternative. 

Now I'm making another food with dipping sauce and it'll be my next post!

Recipe: Serves 1-2 people

2lb. of medium size white shrimp with heads and shells on 

1lb. of Sea salt

2 tbsp of black pepper corns

1 bay leaf

water

Bring water to boil with all the spices in it, and poach shrimps at med heat for around 5 minutes. Make sure you don't crowd the pot with too many shrimp. Give them enough room to poach nicely. 

Once the shrimp float on the surface, take the pot and drain the hot water. Put the shrimp in cold water with a plenty of ice and let them cool.

Aioli

1 large egg yolk

1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup of canola oil

1/4 cup of white wine or rice vinegar

1/4 cup of lemon juice

1 tbsp of sea salt

1-2 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon of honey or sugar

Mix all the ingredients except the oils and blend it while adding oil slowly in food processor. Make sure the consistency is like thick dressing. Add more oil if it's too runny.

I made slices of garlic bread which went real nicely with the shrimp, so here's the recipe for that:

Slice a nice loaf of baguette. Cut a clove of garlic in half and rub the cut surface on the slices of bread. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil on them and grill them for a few minutes on both sides.