Everyone Lubs Pineapple Boats!
Have you ever struggled to get a reservation at one of the finest restaurants in town, then waited patiently for an hour as they "found" you a table? Then, dressed in your Sunday best, you and your dining partner order one of the three specials and it arrives, finally, after half a bottle of wine: a huge plate with your teensy meal neatly arranged on top of artful splotches of blue and red whatever-sauce is placed in front of you.
Although the portion is small, it looks great and seems to taste great. You pay the gi-normous bill and, on the drive home, start questioning if the food was really that good. You secretly suspect that the food was just average. You don't want to admit it aloud, but you just know the anticipation and presentation made otherwise average food seem like fine dining manna from Upper Class Heaven.
Now, truth be told, some fine dining food is terrific. But if you dine out a lot you'll realize that what separates the average from the fantastic is anticipation and presentation: if you have to wait for a while for your food, and then if it looks good or creative, chances are it'll taste good or interesting. I don't know if folks have done any empirical studies on this, but I suspect those same 4 outta 5 people who prefer Such-and-So toothpaste will also prefer pretty or creatively presented food too. After all, those cheesy tabloid television shows never tire of showing us clips of pretty people getting help with their flat tires while ugly people do not get so much as a glance. Analogously, would you prefer the porridge garnished with a mint leaves in a red bowl or the plain porridge in a paper bowl?
So listen-up bachelors: you can dress up just about anything you make for your guests with a garnish and they'll think it tastes better than it really is. Okay, well, there's no way to make fried bologna sandwiches look really appetizing. But I promise anything you make for guests that shows you went that extra step--putting a sprig of rosemary on a slab of meat, or even the hackneyed blotch of curly parsley on the side--will be perceived as better.
If you brag about how wonderful your cooking its, that may also add a touch of anticipation (though don't go overboard with seriousness; brag on your food in a teasing and mocking way). In graduate school, the anticipation + presentation rule led people to declare my otherwise mediocre dinner creations as "fabulous!"
This week's recipe is the Big Gunn of my presentational recipes: Thai curried shrimp served in pineapple boats! What's so great about this recipe is that it is so easy but appears to others as slavishly difficult. Folks just LOVE seeing their food served out of pineapple boats. I'll get to what you put in the boat in a moment below, 'cause the hardest part is making the boats themselves.
What you want to do is get a medium to large pineapple and, standing it up on the bottom with the leaves on the top, use a very sharp chef's knife (or even a bread knife) to cut the thing into two equal halves. Then, using a smaller knife (e.g., steak knife) cut around the edge of the pineapple and then parallel to the core. Make crosshatches on either side of the core. Then, using a spoon dig out the softer sides of your bowl until you have enough dug out to slice out the core. Once you slice out the core from either boat, use a spoon to dig out the rest of the boats. Be sure to eat as you go, and reserve about two cups of pineapple pieces and juice.
Made with olive oil, red curry paste, fish sauce, coconut milk, sugar, paprika, white vinegar, kaffir leaves, lime
Serves/Makes: 2
- 1 pound fresh or cooked shrimp, tails off and peeled
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoon red curry paste (depends on hotness level you prefer, add more if desired)
- 1 can coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons sugar (palm sugar, if you can find it)
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 4 kaffir leaves
- OR
- 1 small lime, juiced
- 2 cups fresh pineapple, chopped, with juice
- hot, cooked white rice
This recipe requires materials you should be able to find in the "Asian" section of a larger supermarket (you'll have no trouble at an Asian food store). The tentative issue here is the curry paste: some brands are super hot, others are very mild. I recommend you taste a bit on your tongue: if it's YOWZA hot, go light on the curry paste.
Anyhow, heat your oil in a medium size stock pan or Dutch oven on low-medium. Add the curry and a little about 4 ounces of the coconut milk. Turn up the heat to medium and stir until you begin to smell the fragrance.
Then, add the fish sauce, sugar, vinegar, and paprika, and kaffir leaves. Kaffir leaves are from a small, fragrant lime shrub that you can plant and grow from a nursery, and are sometimes available at Asian markets (they're interesting looking and I've got one growing on my patio for looks). If you cannot find them, the lime juice will suffice. Stir for about a minute or two, then add the remainder of the coconut milk and dump in the pineapple.
When the sauce is hot, add your shrimp. Cook until your fresh shrimp are pink, or alternately, until the cooked shrimp are heated-through. Now comes the fun part: get your Pineapple Boats and display them on a large plate, the leaves of each facing opposite ends. Ladle your shrimp with juices into the boats.
Serve your guests with a small plate of rice and tell them their job is to use their spoons to get 'em some shrimp. Be sure to instruct them to dip the sauce in the rice: that's the best part!
Recipe can be served as a meal or an appetizer (serves twice as many people as an appetizer)
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