CORRECTED: In honor of The Good Place returning — shrimp cocktail sauce!!
Also: the most beautiful baked feta I've ever seen.
The fourth season of The Good Place premiered yesterday, and by all spoiler-free accounts, it kicked off in grand, hilarious fashion. I wouldn’t know how hilarious, however — I haven’t watched it yet. I’m waiting to watch S4E1 with my girlfriend, whom I got together with after the end of season 3 and with whom I binge watched the first three seasons in about a week. We have been waiting for S4 eagerly.
We want to watch it together. But we’ve both been busy.
Today…today has been hard, people.
In what has been a difficult Friday for someone who loves the Internet, I have spent much of the day hiding from most of it to keep spoilers away from my hungry brain and eyeballs. I haven’t read the most recent of Vox’s usually excellent recaps past the first paragraph. I have been scratching my desperate Schursian itch by plowing through old episodes of this very excellent podcast. BUT I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO ELEANOR AND CHIDI, FRIENDS. I NEED TO KNOW IF JANET AND THE DUMBEST, SWEETEST BAG OF JACKSONVILLE TRASH FIND A WAY TO BE TOGETHER. I NEED TO KNOW.
Anyhoooooooooooooooooooo —
As fans of the show know, Eleanor loves shrimp. And I like to think that, if the math works out, Eleanor will get the shrimpstorm she deserves. But some of the flavors on the sauce dispenser pictured above leave something to be desired. We can do better than Cool Ranch and Cajun, right? Why not build Shellstrop a cocktail sauce worthy of the afterlife?
The following recipe is adapted from this attempted reproduction of St. Elmo’s Steak House’s brain-melting, horseradish-forward sauce, but doctored a bit to be a little less explosive, yet still powerfully addictive, a sauce Mindy St. Clair would ask you to bring bags of to the Medium Place. If you can’t get to Indianapolis to try St. Elmo’s yourself — why not make this one instead?
A Shrimp Cocktail Sauce worthy of the Afterlife
2 cups Heinz chili sauce (please relax, things get more interesting)
4 tablespoons fresh prepared horseradish
1-4 tablespoons gochujang or more, to taste (this will add either a little funk, or a lot, depending on what you prefer.)
1/2 shallot, finely minced
Juice from 1/2 lemon
Juice from 1 lime
A touch of honey, to taste
Mix everything but the juices together. Add the juices, then mix again.
Serve alongside large or jumbo shelled and deveined shrimp, poached and chilled. Resist the urge to dip everything else within reach into it. Or not.
If you’ve read this far, and this often — you’ve probably been enjoying The83K for the length of our brief existence. Won’t you help us get bigger and better and become a Patron?
Thank you for subscribing to and spending time with The83k. This newsletter will remain free for you, friends and food fans, who are enjoying the food coverage here — but I’m hoping to offer in broader and more in-depth stories and features in the future (like the interview above.) I'd like to dedicate more time to it and make it a sustainable concern for everyone who wants more of that delicious, useful content (and frequent roundups of everything you like about food.)
Please consider becoming a Patron and help make The83k bigger and better.
OH AND THERE'S A BUNCH OF PERKS, TOO.
The first monthly roundup of The83k content will drop the first week of September — FOR PATREON SUPPORTERS ONLY!
Also: if you don't want to subscribe, or just want to make a one-time donation – OR want all the goodies but don't want to use Patreon, please feel free to use this link: paypal.me/theohahn
Again: thank you, friends!
Food you should make:
I don’t have a recipe for this stunner. But the chef, Noor Murad, develops recipes with Yotam Ottolenghi, and holy crap, I bet you could figure it out. I’m guessing…chill the feta (not too hard, feta doesn’t really melt), grate the black lime into the sesame seeds, coat the feta slices with that mixture — supreme some limes, top the baked slices with the limes, lemon syrup (simple syrup with lemon) thyme and caramelized honey. Maybe save the full dish for a dinner party and serve these as a dessert course, in smaller portions.
You do not need a gigantic pan or an open fire to get a delicious homemade paella. As a matter of fact, it’s better if you start small.
Don’t turn your nose up at the anchovies in this: it’s an essential salty umami note in a killer-looking, versatile, old-school dip.
Links:
Julia Moskin’s kid just went vegetarian. She’s learned some hard lessons:
For meat eaters, the natural umami in meat and fish is satiating; even if the roasted potatoes alongside are plain and the salad dressing is basic, the savoriness brings satisfaction. Without that to lean on, everything on the plate wants to be thoroughly and thoughtfully seasoned, including basics like grains and beans.
“Just using enough salt will get you halfway there,” said Raquel Pelzel, the author of “Umami Bomb” (Workman, 2019), a new book of vegetarian recipes built around umami-rich ingredients: cooked tomatoes, mushrooms and Parmesan cheese. Then, she said, build elements like sweetness, heat, acid and smoke. (Smoked paprika is vegan sorcery, used in everything that I once flavored with bacon. I picked up a new trick for the spice from “Sababa,” a new cookbook of Israel-inspired food: the author, Adeena Sussman, recommends stirring it in the end of cooking, to preserve its bright taste.)
This woman’s job sounds wild, and I WANNA HELP HER MAKE ALL THE THINGS
Under her leadership since July 2018, the team at PepsiCo has developed viral sensations including the Cheetos Chicken Sandwich at KFC (a fried chicken sandwich dipped in a Cheetos sauce that was met with rave reviews) and Cheetos Popcorn at Regal Cinema (a cheese-dusted popcorn with some Cheetos mixed in for extra crunch, that is now a permanent mainstay on their menu). When we last spoke, she hinted at developing a series of new concepts involving Frito-Lay (which is owned by PepsiCo) for Little Caesars, one of which could make it to market as soon as next year.
And speaking of feeding children: a lot of atypical kids’ food issues just can’t be helped, and that’s not anyone’s fault. For some others, though — some strategies might just work.
Things to watch:
Janet swings by the Good Mythical Morning offices to help the guys with some dining and ethical dilemmas:
Oh MAN, Claire took on Hot Pockets, and WON:
I want one.