Another boring food blog

We had a lovely banana pie to enjoy for dessert, a cold bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge and only one more night to have dinner together before Joseph's work week started, so I wanted to make something nice. Joseph was gone in the evening playing church basketball, so I had the house to myself to really go all out. I am on a mission to use a lot of the ingredients taking up space in my freezers, so I decided it was time to use all the shrimp shells I had saved. I also found some giant head-on prawns (what up, 909!?!), perfect. About once a year I make shrimp bisque out of all the shrimp shells I have saved, but to change it up I decided on chicken with shrimp sauce instead. I had never made this before, but it came together like I had been making it for years. Still inspired to be prepared for my fake tv show, I took a few pictures of the long ass process of making Amy's Shrimp Sauce.
Here is the very abbreviated version of steps:

Chicken breasts marinating in white wine and lemon juice, about 3 hours

Frozen shrimp shells

Giant prawns, shells and heads went in the shrimp stock

Heads, shells, carrot, celery, green onion, bay leaf, garlic & water, simmered for about an hour

Pureed in batches, put through chinois, cooked down by half, through chinois again, combined with 2 cups milk that had been reduced down to 3/4 cup to make shrimp milk

Separately, made a small roux, deglazed with whisky, then added shrimp milk, which thickened to make the final sauce. (I opted to reduce down 2% milk, rather than use heavy cream. I usually mount with a lot of butter at the end, which makes it shiny and velvety, but I didn't and the only butter in this sauce was from the roux. It was just as good and WAY less fattening.)

Dredged chicken in seasoned flour, seared, covered with sauce, finished in oven

Final product, chicken with shrimp sauce and prawns on top

White & wild rice and big ass peas went with it

Isn't he so cute?!


Just so it's clear, I'm not trying to impress anyone or make any other home cooks feel inadequate. Occasionally I hear an annoyed, well, I can't make anything like that so I just made blah blah blah, which after a while makes me feel bad. My intentions for posting all the food blogs are not to hear praise or to show off in any way. This blog has become a fun way for me to record the things I create and want to remember and that is why I continue to post food blog after food blog. I realize that very few others have the time, resources or desire to spend most of their free time in the kitchen doing what I do.