Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Diane Kochilas's book Meze: Small Plates to Savor and Share from the Mediterranean Table. Kochilas also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page.
To read more about Kochilas and Greek cuisine, click here.
There is this great bustling taverna in one of the northern Athenian suburbs near where we live, and this is the house special, so much so that the chef refused to give me a recipe for it. So, I deconstructed it myself only to re-create it pretty much intact. The tomatoes, cream, and ouzo make a great sauce. You could easily make a quantity and serve it over pasta. It would look and taste good with squid-ink linguine.
To make the tomatoes easier to peel, first blanch them: Cut a shallow X in the bottom of each tomato and drop into boiling water for 10 to 30 seconds, until the skin around the X starts to peel back. Immediately remove to ice water, then peel. Kochilas says it's fine to substitute canned tomatoes in this recipe, as long as they're high-quality. You can also finely chop the tomatoes instead of pulverizing them in a food processor.
Recipe information
Yield
Makes 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
1. Using a sharp paring knife, remove the threadlike vein from the shrimp. Wash, drain, sprinkle with lemon juice, and set aside in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Step 2
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet. When the butter stops bubbling, add the onion and cook over medium-low heat until very soft, or 10 to 12 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for a minute or so. While the onion is cooking, pulverize the tomatoes in a food processor until smooth. Add them to the skillet. Cook the tomato-onion mixture over medium heat until thick, about 8 minutes. Add the ouzo and let simmer for another 3 minutes. Drain the shrimp and add them to the skillet. Simmer for about 4 minutes, or until the shrimp firm up and turn pink. Add the cream, season with salt and pepper, and stir well but gently to combine. Just before removing from heat, add the last dab of butter. Serve hot.
Additional tip from Peter Spyropoulos, executive chef/owner of En Plo restaurant in New York City:
Step 3
• Look for an ouzo with a strong anise flavor, such as Boutari, available in many liquor stores.
