Lemony Shrimp Soup
I felt like Snow White while making this soup. While I hummed about the kitchen, ingredients seemed to wing out of the fridge and into the soup as if little adorable doe eyed woodland creatures were helping them along. Before I knew it, I had a beautiful soup that seemed to have created itself.
I love those days.
I’d puttered about with a shrimp soup idea for awhile, but without any concrete ideas. I just knew I was tired of shrimp scampi. And my spicy Asian stir-fried shrimp. I was in a shrimp rut. (A shrut?) So when I began making the soup, I was determined not to use any of my normal shrimpy ingredients. No parsley, no red pepper flakes, no soy sauce.
The part that gives an extra pinch of fairy dust to this recipe is that everything (apart from the shrimp) was just lying around my fridge. The lemon had been lying naked in a drawer since I zested it last week. The onion and leek were left over from the cooking class I taught on Sunday. I always have quarts of whey sitting around as I make my own mozzarella cheese every week. And the collards were leftovers from last night’s dinner. Whenever I’ve attempted such “leftover soups” before, the individual ingredients, like ugly step sisters, have never played well together. But in this soup, they all seemed to grow up and realize each other weren’t so bad.
This soup even got it’s own “happily ever after” ending at dinner. Mr. Quotidian, the ever skeptical prince, pronounced throughout all the kingdom that this was a “soup-er soup.”
A note about the whey: This is actual, real, living, whey. It was drained off of cheese, not mixed from a powder. They are two completely different products and should not be substituted for one another. However, if you are not like me and do not have excess quarts of whey sitting in your fridge, a good chicken stock (or shrimp/fish stock- even better!) would substitute quite nicely.
1 lb of fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
Juice from one lemon
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped, white and pale green parts only
2 tbs lard, butter, or olive oil
1 1/2- 2 qts whey
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 tbs dried sage
1 tbs herbs de provence
1 cup cooked collard greens
salt and pepper
1/4 of a preserved lemon- I used Jenny’s recipe from the Nourished Kitchen, chopped fresh lemon could be substituted
2-tbs yogurt
Pour the lemon juice over the shrimp and let them marinate while you prepare the rest of the soup. Melt the fat in a large soup pot. When the surface shimmers, add the onions and leek with a pinch of salt and sweat until soft, about 2 minutes. If they start browning, turn down the heat. Pour in the whey, then add the chopped garlic and herbs. Bring the whey to just below a boil. Add the shrimp cook for another minute or so. The shrimp are done when they turn bright pink. Add the cooked collards and turn off the heat. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with a spoonful of yogurt and a generous pinch of preserved lemon.
This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday at the Nourishing Gourmet.
Tags: Citrus, ferments/cultures, Foodcraft, herb de provence, Leftovers, lemon, sage, Shrimp, soups, Whey
Mm, thanks Jana! Totally making this. Joel and I bought some supposedly Maine shrimp from some guys on the side of the road, and most of it is still in the freezer. They are complete with googly eyes and everything. I’m planning to cook and peel them the day before I eat them from now on.