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Shrimp Wiggle
I TABLESPOON BUTTER I TABLESPOON FLOUR 3/4 CUP MILK I CUP COOKED PEAS 12 STUFFED OLIVES, CHOPPED I CAN SHRIMPS SALT PAPRIKA Make white sauce of first 3 ingredients. Cook 5 minutes. Season, and stir in everything else. Serve on browned crackers or toast.
The rule is equal parts of shrimps and peas in this old English favorite, but the Pennsylvania Dutch who call their shrimp wiggle Esche Puddle, go farther and add an equal quantity, 1 cup, of cream-for which evaporated milk will serve out of doors.
This can be made with crawfish in place of shrimps.
A chafing-dish standby from the era when a can of shrimp was pantry equipment. It comes together in under ten minutes and forgives a camp stove.
- Can sizeThe recipe does not specify a size; period cans of shrimp varied. The text's own rule of equal parts shrimp and peas points to about a cup, so a small modern can (4-6 oz) or 6 oz of small cooked shrimp will serve.
- White sauce ratioOne tablespoon each of butter and flour to 3/4 cup milk is a thin sauce by design; it thickens further as the peas and shrimp warm through. Cook the roux a minute before the milk goes in so it does not taste pasty.
- The five minutesThe instruction to cook five minutes applies to the sauce alone, before the shrimp joins it. Canned shrimp is already cooked and turns cottony with further simmering — fold it in off the heat or over the barest flame.
- OlivesTwelve stuffed olives, chopped, supply most of the salt as well as the acid. Taste before adding any further salt.
- The cream variationAdding a full cup of cream or evaporated milk more than doubles the liquid and makes this a soupy dish meant to be ladled over toast rather than heaped on it. Evaporated milk also brings its own faint caramel sweetness.
- Browned crackersSplit soda or common crackers, buttered and toasted until crisp, hold up better under sauce than plain bread toast. Do this first — they take longer than the wiggle.
- YieldServes two generously as a supper dish, or four spread on crackers as a first course.