New Orleans BBQ Shrimp

My beautiful girlfriend, Rebekah, gave me the most amazing present the other day. Steven Raichlen's Barbecue! Bible. It is an amazing book! It has over 500 recipes and I've read every one of them and to be perfectly honest I'd try almost all of them. It will definitely get your creative culinary juices flowing and make you want to grill something! Well as Beka and I were perusing the pages we decided to cook a meal from it. We settled on fixing Emeril Lagasse's New Orleans-Style Barbecued Shrimp. We made a list of what we needed and headed to the store to pick up everything. When we got back from the store we plunged right in and started cooking.
Now be forewarned this recipe takes a very long time to cook but believe me it is totally worth it. We started with about 2 1/2 lbs of gorgeous wild Louisiana jumbo shrimp and after peeling them they were placed in a shallow glass dish and sprinkled with a cajun rub and set to marinate. The sauce is what takes the most time and constant attention. It's a very long process to get to the end result and when you start looking at the small bit you get out of it you might get disheartened but one taste and I promise you'll forget about the time! Everything from white wine to shrimp peels went into the sauce, which is actually more of a reduction with cream added to it for volume.
After making the sauce I grilled the shrimp until slightly pink then basted them right on the grill, turned and basted again. They grilled to a gorgeous barely charred finish and their smoky, spicy aroma made everyone's stomach growl. After taking the shrimp off the grill I drizzled them with the remaining sauce and we sat down to eat. Beka made some of her terrific cheddar garlic biscuits and those together with iced tea finished off the simple meal.
To be perfectly honest this was the best meal I have EVER prepared or had a part in preparing. The shrimp were absolutely amazing. They were like little bites of Heaven. Perfectly spicy, creamy, and a hint of smoke from the grill. They paired perfectly with the biscuits and all were quickly consumed or dare I say engulfed! If this were a movie rating I would say six out of five stars. I am making myself hungry just thinking about it. I will certainly be fixing this for my family again in the not too distant future as my mother has already made a couple of comments about how good they were and how she wants some more. I'm sure next time it will be much faster and easier also as I'll know what to expect.
Happy Eating!
"Chef" Slade

By the way, I'd be happy to email anyone the recipes for this or any other dish that I try. Just drop me a line at cssgfac@gmail.com and specify which one you want and I'll do my best to get it to you promptly!