My Inner PETA

Shrimp and Chicken Piccatas

I know I'd never survive as a vegetarian. It's not that I simply can't live without meat (although, with my history of weight loss, I'd make one emaciated vegetarian), nor am I of the Tony Bourdain philosophy that they can have my steaks when they pry them from my cold dead arthrosclerotic fingers. My problem with going vegetarian is that I'm pretty sure the gas would kill me. It would at least force me into a celibate lifestyle.

Frankly, if dietary choice were simply a question of ethics, I'd have a rough time. I love animals. Sincerely. This is not a setup for a W.C. Fields joke.

Don't get me wrong. I won't be throwing away my leather boots and running out to join PETA. Although I admire the sentiment and the conviction of animal rights activists, PETA members always strike me as a bit off kilter. Maybe it was that incident a few years ago when PETA members demonstrated that life, at times, is just one big recycled WKRP Cincinnati rerun. Just before Thanksgiving, on a major freeway overpass, a group of PETAzoids freed a bunch of domestic turkeys. Turkeys are none too bright, though, and the birds just stood there in the open cages. No doubt the gobblers just thought it was feeding time. The PETA members, wanting their gesture to look more dramatic for the captive audience of rush hour traffic streaming past below them, grabbed the birds and threw them into the air. Wouldn't you expect at least one of that crowd of animal lovers to know that domestic turkeys are flightless? Well, the lucky birds just landed on the bridge with a thud. Sadly, several of the birds fell into the oblivious stream of traffic below.

So, I do apologize if this comment ruffles any PETA members' feathers, but on the whole you guys are about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. Perhaps you should eat more fish; some nutritionists consider it brain food.

As I suggested, however, I do understand the whole concept of guilt over eating animals. Like many modern omnivores, I am conflicted in my quests for a fine cut of meat or the correct fish for dinner. I see this effect at work all the time. Some people just can't bear the thought of ordering the death of a lobster. They're perfectly willing to eat a lobster tail, they just don't want to be directly involved in its death. An even more common effect is the Vein That Ruins Dinner. One person at the table cuts into his steak and diagonally opens a vein, allowing a few drops of fluid to bleed onto the plate. I've actually seen people lose a meal over such an incident.

Also, of course, many of us learn to think of some animals in ways that make it difficult to see them as food. My foster daughter, the champion horsewoman, becomes incensed at the mention of horsemeat. Similarly, most Americans are disgusted at the thought of cooked dog. One of my most recently developed quirks is a refusal to eat grouper. I've been diving for a few years, now, and I can't help thinking of grouper as friendly, inquisitive critters.

And then there's veal. What can I safely say about veal? I Googled the term and immediately found the usual complaints about veal calves being raised in slatted paddocks designed to restrict their movement (thereby limiting muscle development) and about the iron-poor, antibiotic-rich milk substitutes fed the calves to get that wan "milk-fed" look you see in the supermarkets. Back in the eighties, many markets simply stopped carrying veal, citing either the unhealthiness of the meat or animal cruelty. I know a quite a few non-vegetarians who won't eat it, and I'm still not comfortable cooking or eating it either. I don't mind killing my food. I'm not even squeamish about cooking with fresh, wriggling lobsters or eels. Torturing my food is another matter. As far as I can see, the intent to kill an animal does not justify torturing it.

Even if not produced by torture and antibiotics, veal is an odd meat. Oh, sure, it's beef--young, but still beef. The flavor (as I recall from a few decades back) is far milder than adult beef, and the color attests to that mildness. Because it lacks much in the way of fat, many preparation methods require either the addition of fat from other sources (wrapping in a fat net for roasting, for instance) or inclusion of a healthy quantity of marrow rich bones (thus the necessary shoulder in osso bucco). Frankly, veal is so mild that many of the traditional recipes seem to be designed to give the meat some sort of flavor. I recall that I enjoyed the my first several veal piccata, but even as a teenager I recognized that the flavor in the dish was the result of the butter, lemon, artichokes, and capers. The veal and stock provided nothing more than a canvas. The veal components provided the protein base and none of the flavor. This proved true for every veal cutlet dish I ever tried.

[On a side note, I am toying with the idea of making veal stock. Hey, I said I was conflicted. I believe veal bones make more sense than beef bones as a source for stock because of the lower ossified bone content. More on this later, if I'm lucky.]

I guess it's no surprise, then, that so many Italian restaurants in the US offer chicken scallopini and piccata in lieu of (or as an alternative to) the veal versions. It really makes very little difference to most diners. Chicken breasts, unless browned and boosted with the proper flavor enhancers (for chicken, the best amplifiers I know are mushrooms and olives), offer vary little in the way of distinct flavor. The same is true for breaded veal cutlets. Oh, sure, veal and chicken breast scallopini or cutlets or Milanese will provide some teeeeny bit of flavor to a dish. Don't write to tell me that I'm wrong because you can taste the chicken even if my allergy-addled taste buds no longer can. I can taste it, too. Likewise, probably, the veal. But let's be honest: it's not a principal component in the flavor.

So, piccata is really not an ideal treatment for an Iron Chef-style enhancement of veal or chicken. If you want to enhance the chicken or veal flavor, make something else. That said, I like piccata. If the chicken provides nothing more than a base upon which to enjoy the other ingredients, I can accept that. I like the other ingredients.

Still, I began to wonder, could anything else work as a base in which the piccata treatment would actually enhance the base ingredient? Lemon, capers, butter, and artichokes.

Well, duh. Shrimp.

I thought about fish, but most fish would be overwhelmed by the capers. I might consider a really strong fishy fish like mackerel or bonito, but I wanted to give the treatment a bit more thought. I'd probably have to grill to subdue the fishiness, and I'd rather keep my piccata in the sauté pan, if possible.

I tried the shrimp piccata dish with two different homemade pastas: once with Italian parsley spaghetti, once with tarragon spaghetti. I expected the parsley to be the better of the two (I was concerned that the tarragon would be just one flavor element too many). I was wrong. Both were good, but the tarragon was better.

Initially, I tried this shrimp dish with my chicken piccata recipe, substituting only shrimp for chicken. After making this once, I realized that the mushrooms (which I initially began using to enhance the chicken) were an unnecessary complication, and I eliminated them.

Shrimp Piccata

dramatis personae

1 package frozen artichoke hearts
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound enormous shrimp tails
1 cup white wine
1 half cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 quarter teaspoon lemon oil or the zest of one medium lemon
2 tablespoons capers, non-pareils

preparation notes

Yes, I said frozen. Feel free to use fresh artichoke hearts, if you like, but that will add a good forty minutes to your prep. I start with Bird's Eye brand artichoke hearts: thaw them in warm water, drain them in a colander, slice each artichoke half into fourths, discarding any tough leaves. Heat the olive oil over a medium flame, and sauté the hearts until they're just beginning to brown. Remove the hearts from the pan, but leave the oil and fond behind--chopsticks work well for this task.

Get the biggest shrimp you can find. The ones I used were six tails to a pound. Shell, devein, and halve the shrimp longitudinally. To get a more cutlet-like effect, I ran a bamboo skewer down the length of each tail half to keep it from curling during sautéing. You can forego this step if you don't want the shrimp tails flat.

In the oil and fond from the artichokes, cook the shrimp tails until all the translucent bits are opaque (a couple three minutes--who times this stuff?). If you do this, you'll want to remove the skewers immediately upon removing the tails from the pan to keep the skewers from becoming an integral component of the shrimp. The best technique I've found is to hold each tail firmly with a paper towel, and twist the skewer while pulling it out.

Turn up the flame a bit and deglaze the white wine. When the majority of the liquid is gone, add the stock and the lemon oil or zest (both work about equally well, but some folks don't like the grainy texture of lemon zest in their sauces). Simmer until the majority of the liquid is gone. Toss in the artichoke hearts and immediately mount the sauce with the butter. Toss in the capers and remove the piccata sauce from the flame.

For each serving, arrange two or three shrimp tail halves on or aside a cup of cooked spaghetti (see below) and pour on a portion of the piccata sauce.

Chicken Picatta

dramatis personae

Same as the shrimp, but substitute four boneless chicken breast halves for the shrimp

You'll also need

- four cremini mushrooms (roughly golfball size)
- two tablespoons all-purpose flour

preparation notes

I prefer to remove all the fat and and the ropy wing muscle from the breasts and then pound them flat--roughly 3/8 inch thick cutlets. Pat the flattened cutlets dry; slice them in half or thirds, whatever size you prefer (it's mostly a matter of aesthetics); and dredge them in the flour. Shake off the excess.

Slice the mushrooms about 1/8th inch thick and, before cooking anything else, sauté them in a non-stick pan without oil until they are beginning to turn golden brown on the edges. Remove the mushrooms (don't clean or wipe the pan, though), and pour in the oil. Prepare the artichokes as for shrimp piccata.

Once you've removed the artichokes, sauté the chicken breasts in the fond and oil from the veggies. How long? I don't know. They should be golden brown and done through. Remove the breasts from the pan.

Turn up the flame a bit and deglaze the pan with white wine. When the majority of the liquid is gone, add the stock and the lemon oil or zest (both work about equally well, but some folks don't like the grainy texture of lemon zest in their sauces). Simmer until the majority of the liquid is gone. Toss in the artichoke hearts and immediately mount the sauce with the butter. Toss in the capers and remove the piccata sauce from the flame. For each serving, arrange two or three shrimp tail halves on or aside a cup of cooked spaghetti and pour on a portion of the piccata sauce.

Tarragon pasta

dramatis personnae

a dozen spinach leaves
2 tablespoons water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup semolina flour
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 extra large eggs
1/4 cup tarragon leaves (chiffonade)

preparation notes

You do not have to use a fancy mixer to mix and knead the dough. It is my considered opinion, however, that you do need a pasta roller. I have attempted hand rolling pasta, and it hurts like hell. If you hand roll pasta, you actually like hand rolling pasta, you think the sun rises and sets on hand rolled pasta, you think those of us who rely on pasta machines are wimps--hey, knock yourself out. Personally, I make the dough, turn it over to my wife, and she rolls out fresh spaghetti on the Atlas (this one: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000CFNCP/qid=1098303893/sr=8-9/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i9_xgl79/002-3201007-8799252?v=glance&s=kitchen&n=507846 ) while I'm preparing dinner. She usually has the pasta drying on the rack well before the water boils.

Note: make the dough at least a half hour before you plan to begin rolling the pasta. The dough has to rest to relax a bit. Otherwise, it will be like trying to roll tire rubber.

Puree the spinach leaves in a food processor in the two tablespoons of water. Strain out all the solid bits in a mesh strainer. All you want is the green liquid.

Before you begin mixing everything, set aside the eggs to warm to room temperature. If you don't want to wait, run hot tap water over them for a few minutes to take off the refrigerator chill.

Oh, and about that chiffonade: these herbs are going into a pasta dough. That means they have to be minced into excruciatingly tiny bits. If the bits are too big, they won't stay in the dough.

If you're not using a mixer, wash and dry your hands, and remove any rings, watches, and bracelets. Clear some counter space and dust it with flour.

Mix the flours in a large bowl. Make a crater in the center and pour all the other ingredients in there. If you are not using a mixer, blend everything from the inside out with a fork. Once the dough becomes too thick to mix with the fork, use your hand. When the whole mass becomes one bolus of green dough, transfer it to the floured counter top to knead. Knead until the dough is uniform, pliable, moist, but not sticky--about five minutes of steady kneading should suffice.

Flour a small plate. Plop the dough ball in the middle of the plate. Wet one hand and wipe the wet hand over the surface of the dough. Cover this with a piece of plastic wrap and let it set for a half hour. If you have made the dough more than a half-hour in advance, put it in the refrigerator, but take it out and let it warm up a half-hour before rolling the pasta.