Day in the Life of an Idiot

 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons of sweet pickle relish
1 tablespoon chopped shallots
1 teaspoon capers, chopped
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (I used "DoubleTake Hot Sauce.")
1 pound peeled and deveined large shrimp (I actually used what Kowalski's called 'salad shrimp' the little tiny ones.)
1 1/2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning (I used Penzey Spice's Cajun seasoning)
4 hoagie rolls
romaine lettuce
tomato slices (optional in our family)
4 thin red onion slices (forgot these, but would make a good addition)


Preparation:

1. Combine first 5 ingredients in a small bowl.  Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Combine shrimp and Cajun seasoning in a bowl; toss well. Add olive oil to pan and swirl to coat.  Add shrimp to pan, cook 2 minutes on each side until done. Mix into mayonnaise mixture.

2. Cut each roll in half horizontally. (I then toasted them in our toaster oven.) Top bottom half of each roll with shrimp and mayonnaise mixture. Add toppings.


NOTES:

Okay, actually I screwed this up and they still tasted great. Because I have a tendency to read recipes line-by-line, sometimes I miss important steps.  So, here when it says put the sauce in a bowl and then fry the shrimp, I mixed everything together and ended up frying the shrimp in the sauce which of course just sort of melted. On the other hand, since I was working with the smaller shrimp (which were also frozen) it gave me a chance to drain off excess water and kind of marinated them a bit in their own juices and extra spices, as it were.  It wasn't difficult to recreate the sauce when everything was done, either.  Also the original recipe had the shrimp sitting on top of a layer of the mayonnaise mixture, but it was a lot yummier to mix the little shrimp in to the sauce, IMHO.  If you use bigger shrimp it might make sense to do it their way.