I wanted to try something completely different with a half-batch of orecchiette that I had made and was drying on the counter, but neither of us was much interested in Italian that night. I happened to see a PBS show about Asian street food that gave me an idea...
There were some frozen shrimp left over from a class... there was a bottle of supremely funky Red Boat fish sauce given to me by my dear friend Marcia Kiesel, who ran the Food & Wine test kitchen for years and knows everything there is to know about Vietnamese food... and a little bit of coconut milk that I'd frozen (because it goes bad pretty fast if you leave it too long in the fridge).
So I sautéed some onions, added a lot of chopped garlic, about a tablespoon of the Red Boat and some light chicken stock, a scary spoonful of my habañero hot sauce , and the zest of a lime. Then I threw in the coconut ice cube, shredded a handful of the first-of-the-season Thai basil, and chopped a little cilantro.
This simmered gently while I cooked the orecchiette. Then, just before the pasta was done, I tossed some frozen peas and the thawed shrimp into the sauce and, as the shrimp just began to turn pink... in went the almost done pasta to spend a final minute or two soaking up the sauce... a shot of soy, then into warmed bowls. WOW. Not traditional Thai or Vietnamese... but I'm guessing they'd recognize the flavors.
Why no picture of the dish, you ask?
Because though really really good and deep and sinus-clearing and sweat-producing... it was also REALLY ugly: muddy brown sauce, and the peas, though still just barely cooked, had turned the color of canned... not pretty... but I'm still thinking about the flavors a day later.
