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Shrimps, Mariniere
Wash in cold water one and a half pounds live shrimps, drain on a sieve. Place two tablespoons melted butter in a saucepan with eight finely chopped shallots and fry for three minutes. Add the shrimps, season with a teaspoon salt and two saltspoons cayenne. Mix well, and cook for five minutes. Moisten with a gill white wine. Finely chop up a bean of sound garlic, two branches well-cleaned parsley, one branch chervil and two branches chives; add to the shrimps, mix lightly. Cover the pan and let cook for fifteen minutes. Remove and serve in a deep, hot dish.
A shell-on shrimp braise in white wine and herbs, closer to a French court-bouillon dish than to anything baked. Two things need attention: the archaic small measures, and the total cooking time.
- The timing is the hingeAs written the shrimp cook 5 minutes, then a further 15 after the wine and herbs go in. Twenty minutes turns modern peeled or shell-on shrimp to rubber. Small shrimp in the shell need 2-3 minutes total once the liquid is simmering; build the shallot-wine-herb base first, then add the shrimp at the end.
- "Live shrimps"The original assumes shrimp bought whole and still moving, cooked in the shell with heads on. Use whole shell-on shrimp if you can get them, or head-on frozen ones thawed; the shells and heads are where the flavour of the sauce comes from. Peeled shrimp will give a thin result.
- A gillHalf a cup, 4 fl oz. Use a dry white you would drink — the wine is barely reduced and its character carries through.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of cayenne is roughly 1/2 teaspoon for 1 1/2 lb of shrimp. That is assertive but not extreme; start with half if you are unsure of your cayenne.
- "A bean of garlic" and "branches"A bean is a single clove. A branch is a sprig or small stem, so read this as two sprigs parsley, one of chervil, and two of chives, all finely chopped. Chervil is the one that may be hard to find; a little tarragon plus extra parsley is the usual substitute, though it shifts the flavour.
- Eight shallotsEight small shallots would come to roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped, so with two large modern shallots you are likely in range. Keep the heat moderate for the three-minute fry; browned shallots will muddy the sauce.
- ServingEnough for two as a main course or four as a first course. The dish makes its own broth, so serve it in a warmed shallow bowl with plenty of bread, and put out something for the shells.
Marinière means "in the mariner's style" — shellfish cooked quickly in white wine with shallots and herbs, the same formula that gives us moules marinière. The style is generally associated with the French Atlantic and Channel coasts, where the wine, the aromatics and the shellfish were all local. The instruction to wash live shrimp is the clearest sign of the period: before reliable refrigeration and frozen shipping, shellfish this small was a dish for people close to the water, and the freshness the recipe takes for granted is the one thing a modern cook is most likely to have to work around.