It’s hot, but my kitchen is not. Dinner is cool. Today’s dinner starts with gazpacho, a chilled tomato-vegetable soup, accompanied by shrimp salad in cucumber boats and beets. I’ll post the gazpacho recipe separately. Now I’ll share the shrimp boats basics.
Shrimp Boats
I like these shrimp boats because they are chocked full of raw vegetables, and the boat shape can lure in even picky eaters. Serves two.
- 1/4 onion, finely diced
- 2 stalks celery, finely diced
- optional: fresh green peas or soybeans, if you have them
- 1/2-3/4 pound shrimp (good sized), cleaned and boiled until just cooked
- 1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
- 1 squirt (about a teaspoon) ketchup (trust me!)
- 2-4 tiny squirts Sriracha hot sauce
- 1 large, long salad cucumber
Mix together the onion, celery, shrimp, mayo, ketchup, and hot sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. Peel cucumber if the exterior is bitter or coated with nasty wax. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise to make two long halves. Using a spoon, scoop out the seeds. Now you’ve got a canoe! Fill it with the shrimp salad mixture, and you’ve got a shrimp boat.
Shrimp Boats and Beets
Of course, you could substitute chicken salad, tuna salad, or salmon salad by adjusting your seasonings. For an appetizer option or a whole fleet of smaller boats for dinner, use pickling cucumbers and salad-sized shrimp.
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