Patti White

FRIDAY FISH: Shrimp-Arugula Salad with Louie Dressing

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Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5 and goes through April 17, 2025. (Easter is April 20, 2025) Some Christians fast from meat voluntarily on Fridays during Lent. I blog fish at that time as a spiritual discipline and learning opportunity, though I could also include vegetarian dishes, if I chose–and I might! This year I celebrate 10 years of FRIDAY FISH on More Time at the Table. Up your fish game with me for the next few weeks! Glad to have you on board.

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At our house, Friday night is date night. I realize that for other folks, this means running out to a restaurant, movie, concert, or maybe even ordering in a sweet meal to share in front of the fireplace. For best sous and husband Dave and me, it’s a thoughtful meal cooked right here in our own kitchen and served in a quiet dining room complete with paired wine, candles, music, comfy clothes, no phones and also… our own private restroom just across the hall–wink, wink. We rarely eat dinner in a restaurant unless traveling, and, if we do, it’s not during crowded weekend nights. Do I choose arduous recipes? Not typically but our dinners often– though not always– feature 3 or 4 painless courses, red meat, and an entire evening devoted to one another.

Here’s our Table for Two at home.

If I’ve presence of mind enough, I might say on Thursday, “Any requests for Friday night?” Dave usually leaves it up to me (he chooses wines, btw) but last week he said, “What about shrimp? Or maybe steak?” With that disparate mix in mind, I thawed shrimp for an appetizer and two hefty filets leftover from a birthday meal last October. When Friday rolled around, instead of old school shrimp cocktail, which was my first thought, I threw together a simple grilled shrimp and arugula salad that still included our favorite shrimp cocktail sauce — a spiced up Louie — as a dressing. Because I had olives out from a Friday afternoon glass of wine with good friend, Patti, I chopped those up and skinny-sliced a red onion. (If your onion is too hot, soak it in water or vinegar for 8-10 minutes before draining, patting dry and adding to salad.) This could be sounding vaguely like a Shrimp Louie salad to you aficionados –and you’d be right–but I made it out of what was on hand skipping the usual suspects of romaine, tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs, and avocado. Without the weightier ingredients and just a few shrimp, our salad was more first course-style than a typical main course Louie, which can feel something like a Cobb in size and heft. “Louis,” by the way, is right, too, but however you’d like to spell it, it’s pronounced LOO-ee. Turned out light, elegant (Dave’s word), pleasing, along with sooo appetizing. In other words, we didn’t spoil our dinner. From whence came Shrimp Louie?

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Strawberry-Rhubarb Bars

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I bake less in the summer even though it’s when the fruit is both perfect and plentiful. The house is warm and doesn’t need my gas oven blasting in an out-and-out war with the pricy air conditioning. But baking less doesn’t mean I don’t bake at all. The other day, it never got above 60F. I was a baking fool. Other times, if I happen to be up early, I’ll slide a quick fruit coffeecake or a tray of scones into the oven while the house is still open and cool from the night air. In Colorado, it’s not unusual to have temperatures in the 50’s at o’dark thirty. Thank you, weather gods. Birthdays? I’m up at 5 a.m. making cake no matter what. I mean, people need birthday cakes; don’t they? Even when it’s summer? Of course.

Funerals, too, need sweet treats to eat through the grief and to have something to share with other mourners while sipping coffee or punch. (At my funeral, there d*** well better be wine. If it was good enough for Jesus…) Gives you something positive and sacramental (“breaking bread,” right?) to do together while you remember a friend/loved one or think ahead to a life without that special person. So even if it’s hot, I’ll bake for a funeral. Wouldn’t you?

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Almond Shortbread

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Who first thought of sugar, butter, and flour together? A match made in heaven, I’d say.
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I’ve made the same shortbread recipe for years. Ina Garten stands by Eli Zabar’s shortbread recipe and I’ve done the same. What’s good enough for Ina…! In fact, there are several variations on that theme right on this blog–think chocolate dipped and salted fluted rounds, sugar-sprinkled hearts, lemon-scented fluted cookies, and even a savory appetizer version. I have, however, heard from a follower that the dough is a perfect pain to keep together and roll; I partly agree. It is sometimes, though not always, difficult–you must pay strict attention and keep patching and rolling– but the result always seemed to be worth it. Facing the need for a couple hundred shortbread cookies for my friend Lynne Stefonik’s mom, Marge Murray’s funeral, I decided to compare Ina’s/Eli’s basic to other shortbreads just to see what I could see. One that appeared promising was SCOTCH SHORTBREAD from THE FANNY FARMER BAKING BOOK by Marion Cunningham, a book I trust implicitly. The two recipes were similar in scope, the big difference being the use of powdered sugar rather than granulated. Any Scot baker worth her salt knows shortbread is made with granulated sugar–though some also have cornstarch, which is an ingredient of powdered sugar, after all– but I decided to give these a try, given my need for ease and speed. What a bake! This dough goes together, rolls, cuts, and bakes like the perennial dream cookie. The recipe is so simple I had it memorized by the second or third batch. My only change was to move from vanilla extract to almond extract, which is just enough to give them a tasty boost to my mind. I also fleshed out the directions a little. Thanks, Marion. Once again!

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Lemony Green Bean and Goat Cheese Salad

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A different sort of “green salad.”
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When good friends Patti and Jim came for dinner and to watch the movie “Chocolat” a couple of weeks ago, it was easy to choose a quintessential French do-ahead cold weather meal like Bœuf Bourguignon (aka Beef Burgundy or BB). The movie, a forever fave starring Juliette Binoche, Alfred Molina, Judy Dench, and Johnny Depp, is set in France and why not follow a great location theme for our menu? I had been wanting to make the fun Salmon Rillettes out of Dorie Greenspan’s AROUND MY FRENCH TABLE and so that was tidily in the bag (with Kir to drink), as was dessert. Patti, a much-in-demand local caterer and baker extraordinaire, decided to make Julia Child’s Queen of Sheba Cake ( Reine de Saba–a famous chocolate and almond confection) and who wouldn’t take her up on that… My stumbling block was a first course salad. I wanted green, green, green because “BB” is a hefty-heavy meal and there was chocolate cake, too, wasn’t there? I liked the idea of totally simple and fairly quick but stunning– a show stopper sitting on the table when they arrived sort of deal. (I don’t like to be too busy when friends come and I want them to see what’s ahead food wise.) Of course I didn’t want just a green salad. Tooling through the produce aisle trying to figure it out, what looked the very best to me were some skinny green beans also known as haricots verts, which while lovely on their own tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, lemon zest, and crushed red pepper needed a boost or larger venue for this special meal. I brought them home, cooked them until just past “crisp” and settled on lightly slathering them all in a two-vinegar, very very Dijony vinaigrette. Which was great. Fine. Totally.

Except, we couldn’t just eat green beans. Well, we could… but. So I dolled the whole shebang up with crisp mixed greens, bright white crunchy fennel, juicy cherry tomatoes, tender roasted red peppers, and creamy goat’s cheese. In other words, not so much that you couldn’t see what was there but just enough to show it all off. Thinking hard about balance — comes right after color– there was nothing to do but finish it off with yellow-yellow lemon zest for acid and capers for salinity. Right after I chose the best big round platter in the cupboard, you see. (24″ in diameter and made in Provence) And that’s how I got “Lemony Green Bean and Goat Cheese Salad.”

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