Pulling Up a Chair to the ‘New American Table’

The Austin Food & Wine Festival is fast approaching, and as one of the very lucky booksellers who will be on hand in the cookbook tent this weekend helping folks find books and get them signed by their favorite chef, I thought I ought to get to know one of those cookbooks a little bit better first (read: I will take advantage of any excuse to cook up a big meal in my kitchen).

The list of talent at the Festival is long, and so is the list of books we’ll be bringing with us. After much deliberation, I decided that my culinary prowess fell just short of the ambitious recipes in Chef Morimoto’s beautiful cookbook (but had a grand time feasting my eyes on the photography) and would try my hand at Marcus Sameulsson’s New American Table.

I must have stuck a post-it on every other page of this book – I wanted to make it all! The variety of its recipes (Cornbread with Tomato Chutney; Avocado -Banana Smoothie; Vegetable Fritters; Quick Beef Curry; Pad Thai; Turkey Meat Loaf with Tomato-Spinach Sauce) coupled with the accessibility of it ingredients had me hooked. Ultimately, I narrowed my sights to the Shrimp Patties with Mango Dip.

Black beans, garlic, jalapenos, basil, cumin, shrimp, olive oil – I had nearly everything but the shrimp in my kitchen. Central Market hooked me up with the raw shrimp and the pumpkin seed oil needed for the Mango Dip (can’t wait to see what kind of tasty stir fries that oil has in its future) and of course the beautiful mangoes.

My cooking partner and I split up the duties. I took on the patties while he set about making the Mango Dip. The recipe calls for jalapeno and red Thai chilies. Being the adventurous souls that we are, we threw in a few extra red Thai chilies. Because we have no fear.

I’ve never cooked with raw shrimp before. I’m more your frozen-shrimp-in-a-bag sort of a girl (which is one of the reasons why I’m looking forward to the Austin Food & Wine Festival – I stand to learn a lot at all those chef demos). I thought it would be hard to chop up the shrimp and mix it in with the pureed black beans and spices. It was not. Apparently shrimp turns to a pulpy mush under a kitchen knife. Who knew? (Marcus Sameulsson. And probably every chef in the business. Just one more reason why I’m a bookseller and not on the Food Network.)

While I was discovering all kinds of things about shrimp, my cooking partner was toasting pumpkin seeds in a pan (with more chilies)…..

And adding mango….

How gorgeous is that pan?! This is the first time I’ve cooked with mango and I feel a whole new world has opened up before me. The sweet, toasty smell wafting from the stove top had us both swooning. And our eyes sort of watering….we really went crazy with the chili, a move totally off the Samuelsson road map and for which we claim full responsibility.

Meanwhile, the patties were coming together nicely. Most of the work was in the chopping. Which is why I look so happy. This was so easy!

Once the mango, pumpkin seeds and chilies had sauteed in the pumpkin oil, we transferred all of it into a blender, added some tahini and lime juice and pureed until smooth. Here’s my kitchen partner pureeing. Look at him go!

I formed the shrimp mixture into patties (they were, as Samuelsson warned in the book, rather wet and coated my fingers as I worked), patted them with cornstarch and fried those puppies up in a wee bit of oil.

Confession: I don’t fry food very often, and as a result, I had sort of no idea what I was doing. The first round of patties absorbed ALL of the oil in the pan – 1/4 cup of olive oil. Those patties were put on paper towels in a bowl, apologized to, and told they were never to be spoken of again. Until my kitchen partner ate all of them. That’s right. ALL of them.

After the first batch I got it together and it was all a breeze.

Those extra red Thai chilies we threw in certainly made a difference. We were sweating as we served up our second helpings. The patties held together nicely on our plates. These would easily work between a bun. The Mango Dip was OUT OF THIS WORLD! Sweet, spicy and savory, the flavors were layered and helped mellow out the extra heat we’d added. We’ll definitely make this again and are looking for new ways to use the Mango Dip whenever possible.

I can’t say enough good things about the flavor combinations in both the patties and the dip. This is what I love about this cookbook in general – Samuelsson combines simple, standard ingredients in ways that promise to surprise and delight your taste buds. I’m glad to add this gem to my cookbook collection and look forward to having him sign it this weekend.

Tickets are still available for the Austin Food & Wine Festival. Visit the Festival website for more info.