Fresh Maine shrimp

[ghostrider]

johnnyd, saw your posts on the shrimp thread in the Media forum, figured I should post a query here.

I've got 2 nights in Portland & 3 in Augusta in my future. Considering that the shrimp season is now, can anyone recommend restaurants that feature this delectable treat, more or less fresh off the boat?

Alas, I won't have access to a kitchen this trip, so I won't have the pleasure of hitting the local fish markets & cooking it myself.

Thanks.

[johnnyd]

You r-r-rang?!

I purchased the first of many pounds today and immediately prepared ceviche with fresh lime juice, finely minced garlic and thai chilli chiffonade. While that fused, I peeled a few and dipped 'em in soy/ginger/wasabi stuff that I hastily stirred together. Then I boiled a handful in bay leaf and peppercorns to dip in sage butter. Was I prepared for this day? You bet!

I have to say that only a few places are in the know about these delectible morsels, maybe because, as I mentioned in the shrimpfarm thread, they're a bitch to prep. You can have your pick of the cheap chowder places who wil fry the bejezzus out of 'em, a big waste. I say.

Let me scout around a bit for you Mr.GRider. Check back soon. I can tell you with absolute certainty that chef Tak at Yosaku (#1 Danforth St) will have his amaebi on special, and Yoshi at Sapporo Sushi (230 Commercial St) will also have it on the menu... just in case you miss my follow-up post.

[slbunge]

If anyone has a source in the Boston area, I'd be interested in hearing about it. So far, I haven't looked terribly hard but I didn't see any at fish counters over the weekend. (The season started last week, right?)

[johnnyd]

Maine Shrimp season started Sunday the 19th. The Portland Fish Exchange held its first shrimp auction on Sunday night. Exchange buyers offered 55 cents for the 9,400 pounds of shrimp consigned; seller representatives declined the price.

I found 'em at my usual purveyor at $1.49/heads-on, $3.99/headless, and $6.99 shelled.

A quick phone blitz of better kitchens intentions re: Gulf of Maine Shrimp yielded the following:

Street & Co. - Not Yet

Old Port Sea Grill - Not 'til after 1/1/05

Fore Street - Ordered and planned for menu special this week.

For Boston: I called Frank Giuffre and they have no plans to carry them. Legal doesn't know yet. Boston and Maine Co. hung up on me.

What interests me is that there was no auction last night, so the retailers will have to sell out of this first 9400lbs before the boats go out again, assuming that's what the sellers went and did with all that shrimp: sell 'em to the local seafood purveyors, or the distributors like Doudy Bros, North Atlantic or Bristol Seafood, directly.

This morning I made an omelet with bits of smoked salmon trim, fresh maine shrimp and cream cheese. A bit of chervil or tarragon might have made it but I had to settle for parsley. Devine.

[Fred]

I get mine from Scott at Simpsons Seafood in Wiscasset. He also seems to have a bunch of black back flounder which is out of this world.

[johnnyd]

Last night:

Egg Noodles w/

Erzatz Bernaise

Fresh Maine Shrimp!

Baguette and "House" white wine

Third meal of the week with the little buggers. I counted 60pcs in the pound bag I bought Monday. Still have enough for another light meal for two.

Last night's auction:

8432 lbs consigned

4478 lbs sold

$0.65 - low

$0.69 - average

$0.80 - high

[slbunge]

For Boston: I called Frank Giuffre and they have no plans to carry them.  Legal doesn't know yet.  Boston and Maine Co. hung up on me. 

←

I was at Giuffre on Saturday and they told me the same. I expected that since they actually care about offering gulf shrimp rather than tiger shrimp that they would be the one to go to. Nope.

If I get time, I might try Fresh Pond. It might also make sense for me to call Sea to You since the local sushi chefs may be asking for it.

If I learn any more, I'll post.

[johnnyd]

I'm glad you were at Franks. I wonder if your visit and my call will induce a bit of demand-pressure on the buyer there? Maine Shrimp are inexpensive, delicious, novel, and abundant. Someone down there has to get with the program.

Edited December 22, 2004 by johnnyd (log)

[jmcgrath]

My fishmonger, Twin Seafood in West Concord, MA said they would have them after the first of the year.

Jim

[ghostrider]

Last night:

Egg Noodles w/

Erzatz Bernaise

Fresh Maine Shrimp!

Baguette and "House" white wine

Third meal of the week with the little buggers.  I counted 60pcs in the pound bag I bought Monday.  Still have enough for another light meal for two.

Last night's auction:

8432 lbs consigned

4478 lbs sold

$0.65 - low

$0.69 - average

$0.80 - high

←

Where do you get the auction info?

I am fascinated by all this.

[johnnyd]

Portland Fish Exchange is a huge building on Commercial Street, the extra wide boulevard on Portland's Old Port waterfront. It is a clearing house for a very large portion of east coast seafood.

Last auction was 12/22:

Shrimp Consigned: 21,529 lbs

Shrimp Sold: 13,069 lbs

High Price: $0.60

Average: 0.30

Low: 0.25

The volume is way up, the price is down. I think the next auction is tonight so I will be shopping for the heads-on fresh batch Thursday or Friday. Shrimp at the local Hannaford's supermarket looked excellent even though I suspect they were from the older boat trips.

Recent meals w/Maine Shrimp included a sort of Paella with shrimp, chorizo, peas, carrots, celery, onion, and saffron rice.

New years eve dinner will include a variation of the Paprika Shrimp Tapas Recipe found in today's NYT Dining section, among other tasty morsels.

Edited December 29, 2004 by johnnyd (log)

[Ellie]

johnnyd --

Hey the fish auction info is a lot of fun, thanks! I called the shrimp auction line and found it hadn't been updated for today. So I called the general info line to ask when it would be and he told me three ships are coming in tonight (by name even, that's pretty cool!) So I called my lobster place and asked them about their stock. They have no whole shrimp, but will tomorrow (after tonight's auction). I wish I could always be so connected to my food sources.

New Year's theme this year is Maine seafood -- Happy New Year!!!

[johnnyd]

Maine Shrimp Update:

The shrimp auction on the 10th had an interesting spike in prices for only 2364lbs of harvest:

Low bid: $1.20

Average: 1.22

High bid: 1.36

This is the first time I have seen the wholesale prices over a buck this season, and confirmed the rumour I'd heard on the waterfront that prices were rising because of a variety of reasons, all suspect: interruption in supply, tsunami effect, bigtime marketing effort, etc.

Of course, I know better than to believe much of what you hear on any waterfront, and true to form, the prices were pretty sad the next night:

Low bid: $0.30

Average: 0.592

High bid: 0.75

... but for 3 times the volume of product sold.

We are having some snotty weathah up heeyah. Seas are running about eight feet with accumulating ice, so no boats in their right minds would be out to sea in this. When freezing rain hits decks and rigging and freezes, the weight of the vessel rises very quickly, and if allowed to accumulate, creates a top-heavy condition that will cause it to capsize (tip over and probably sink). This is why you see guys on deck in slickers hitting everything topside with baseball bats, then shoveling chunks of ice overboard... as fast as they possibly can. Any further shrimping will have to wait until this clears up.

On the recipe front, we made an amazing pad-thai this week using, of course, Mamster and Pims EGCI Cooking Course on Thai Cooking at Home, and since this batch had been sitting a day or three, decided to immerse them, peeled, in a lime (little susies minis), fish sauce and minced bird chile marinade for a enough time it took to prep the dish - maybe fifteen minutes. The miniature fresh shrimp cooked in seconds, then removed to stand while everything else was made, then added for the final toss. Truly delicious and their wee size seemed more suitable to the spirit of this dish too.

Next up: we're going for a seafood stew/bouillabaise/fruit de mer, thingie with scallops, local rope-grown mussels and whole maine shrimp. Wish I had a camera!

[Fred]

thanks for the update Johnny. The Tsunami effect is right on the money. Wholesalers are telling restaurant that if they are looking for Tiger Prawns and other seafood coming out of SE Asia that they better change their menues. Whatever is making landfall in the states is wicked expesive. Heard there was supposed to be some significant icing conditions on the coast in the last couple of days, not fun ESPECIALLY if you have traps to haul or shrimp to catch.

[9lives]

Sea to You had Maine shrimp this morning.

[LindaK]

oh my, I always knew the prices at my local Whole Foods were high but the $s here make it clear. $5.99 lb retail. yet another example of the cost of being a city dweller? but I must admit, these shrimp are the sweetest, tastiest I've had outside of Chinatown. Infinitely superior to their farm-raised relatives.

[johnnyd]

Last night's Auction was only 2781 pounds and sold out:

Low $0.80

Average 0.81

High 0.84

Prices locally seem to rise a bit day by day.

This weekend I made Frutos do Mar na Cataplana, with fresh maine shrimp, local mussels and some cod fillet. It is a tomato based dish that I spent about a half hour detailing here, then Firefox crashed so that's that. If I ever do a foodblog, I'll do it again - a really amazing dish.

[Fred]

Johnny-

You should use Great Easter Mussel farms I sail with Chip Davison (Owner) in the summer, good guy and an awesome mussel farmer.

Edited January 21, 2005 by Fred (log)

[johnnyd]

Funny you should mention it: I actually did use Great Easterns this weekend. Unfortunately I had to discard about 10 or 12 of 'em as they were dead, but that's about normal.

I prefer to use my pals, Craig and Tolof rope-grown from their raft off Clapboard Island ("the Far Side of the Foreside") since I urchined with Craig about ten years ago. He invited me out for a days work in May (it was raining and about 45º) so I got to witness the whole operation, right down to the delivery of a big load of 2lb bags to the dock behind Harbor Fish Market. You can't get 'em fresher. They gave me 14lbs that day! I made a shitload of oil-packed jars with pimentos and capers that night.

I saw a local TV piece on Chip's operation and it looks like a terrific idea. It's getting pretty popular downeast among some of the guys I used to dive with. The product is excellent and it's not hurting anything. Some sailors get bent out of shape because of the raft moorings being "too close" to the lanes and some summer people complained about compressors going "all day", but that's life on the coast, people!

[Fred]

Awesome. My favorite is smoking them if I get a ton. I use a regular stove top smoker. Soo good, and a 1/10 the price that Ducktrap sells smoked mussels for.

[johnnyd]

Awesome.  My favorite is smoking them if I get a ton. I use a regular stove top smoker.  Soo good, and a 1/10 the price that Ducktrap sells smoked mussels for.

←

Stovetop smoker???

whoa! that's a plan that's gotta happen. I could smoke some of this shrimp too! I hate shelling out big bucks for Ducktrap product too, but you can't deny they do a great job.

[johnnyd]

Article about Farmed Mussels off Clapboard Island in Casco Bay

(with pix)

[johnnyd]

Last night's auction saw 15,269 lbs fresh shrimp consigned and all sold:

Low $0.64

Average 0.66

High 0.68

A substantial increase in harvest in a week's time. Prices at retail are steady: I saw Whole Maine Shrimp at $1.49 over the weekend, and we are half way through the season.

I've noticed some pretty good sized beasts in the last purchase, and that there are quite a few with collections of eggs clumped between their legs. These add markedly to the flavour of a dish, and to the appearance, since tiny black dots are everywhere. You also get antennae and head debris that, unless pretty well cooked, are a pain. It's about this time in the season when my slowly-coming-around-to-the-idea-of-eating-seafood wife begs me to buy the cleaned, headless fresh shrimp instead of the whole animals which have a right-off-the-boat feel to them, but I'll admit, start being a chore after the initial excitement of the season wears off.

Last weekend, I made fabulous shrimp dumplings with barely-cooked shrimp and their roe, minced: napa cabbage/ginger/pine nuts/scallions/parsley and some soy sauce, sesame oil, mirin, and a bit of cornstarch & H20.

I dropped them in some boiling chicken stock with parsley leaves and hon-dashi. Wicked good!

[elrap]

Man, you have got me hungry johnnyd! David's fish market in Salisbury, MA, aka the center of my seafood universe, has had fresh shrimp only rarely this season & I've had bad luck on my visits. They freeze a shelled product in 5# blocks & defrost for sale over the weekend or if you ask. Like most shrimp I've found the Mainers are pretty good frozen, at least at David's, but I haven't hit on the fresh shrimp yet this season & so have to go from memory.

I like to make a particular Tampico-style chili sauce from Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico (it's pungent and vinegary and lasts for weeks in the fridge), mix up a little with the tiny shrimp and some cubes of avocado, serve on lettuce cold with sour cream or warm inside a soft taco. I'm looking forward to having some for the Super Bowl - Go Pats!

--L. Rap

[ghostrider]

Dreaming & drooling in Jersey....