It was a dark and stormy night.
Well, it was! And I’ve always wanted to start a post with Snoopy’s famous line. 😎
It was a dark and stormy night, a weeknight, a night when leaving the house for any reason at all seemed like a very bad idea, and the endless days and nights of late-spring rain had made us weary of the wet.
So I decided to make up a recipe with things I had on hand, because test kitchen cooking is fun.
Gathering Ingredients and Thinking of What to Make
Hmmmm, where to start?
Not a problem! There’s always something in the fridge here at Glover Gardens.
I hadn’t used the meat from the crabs I caught the last time we were at Gumbo Cove—that would be a great place to start.
I retrieved the crab meat from the freezer and started looking around for what might complement it well.
Corn! I had a single ear of corn sitting sadly in the vegetable crisper, threatening me with “cook me now, or else”. Second ingredient decided.
What else?
We had some bacon frozen, and bacon is always good with corn and crab. Bacon is good with anything, really. The Grill-Meister has a t-shirt about that.
The bread gave me the rest of the idea: sauté the corn with my Zippy Cajun, plus tomatoes, garlic, onions and jalapeños, throw in some cheese and then broil it onto toast. Bingo! A yummy, savory meal for a damp and dreary night.
What kind of cheese?
The cheese drawer yielded some Boursin – perfect!
But was there anything else that could amp up my dish? Of course: shrimp!
I started digging around in the freezer for the bag of raw shrimp I almost always have on hand, and then found some cooked Zippy Cajun shrimp I had frozen recently and forgotten about. I exclaimed, “I love myself!” and set about thawing them. I was really happy to have already-cooked shrimp that was spiced just the way we like it.
Making It Up as I Went
Thus Zippy Cajun Shrimp and Crab Toast with Corn, Bacon and Boursin was on the menu that night, a kicked-up version of shrimp toast with additional proteins. The seafood and veggies meant it would be relatively healthy, and the aromatics and spices meant it would be delicious.
I sliced the shrimp in half longways to make them thinner and a better fit for the toast as a delivery device, divided the corn mixture and mounded it onto four buttered and toasted pieces of bread, topped them with the shrimp and one piece of pepper jack cheese diced into tiny bits and put the toasts under the broiler for a few minutes. Then I added a sliced red serrano pepper and green onions for a spicy and bright garnish and plated the dish alongside some leftover chopped salad (don’t judge me – it was a weeknight).
The Verdict
I loved this dish for the flavors. They were truly complementary and together formed a really good savory blend of tastes. The pop and sweetness of the corn and tomatoes balanced the creaminess of the cheese and the salty-sweet nature of the seafood, and the spice level was just right, especially with the serrano garnish. The texture added by the crunchy toast rounded out each bite for the perfect mouthfeel.
But I didn’t love this dish for how it performed in the eating department. I intended it to be a dish you could eat with your hands, but it needed a knife and fork, and the topping didn’t always stick to the toast. It would have been much better served in ramekins with toast points, so the diner could spread each delectable bite onto the toast themselves. In this case, I would probably chop up the shrimp instead of slicing in in half longways, although I’m not sure about that yet.
This dish has a lot of potential, and I’m going to make it again the next time I have crab on hand.
Stay tuned! I’ll share the recipe with you when I get it right.
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