Seafood Atlas · Starter
Garides Saganaki
- Easy
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with a briny, maritime salinity, fresh herbs arguing happily on top, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 500g large shrimp, peeled, tails on (shells simmered 10 min in a splash of water if you have the patience: the liquor deepens the sauce)
- 4 ripe tomatoes, grated (skins left behind in your hand) or 1 can crushed
- 1 onion, 3 garlic cloves, big pinch chili flakes; 1 tsp dried oregano
- 60ml ouzo, the flambé moment and the anise thread
- 150g feta in large chunks; olive oil; parsley; bread with a mission
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
FlambéSweating aromatics: soft, never brownedKeeping the cooking liquid
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · shellfish · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Soften onion in olive oil; garlic and chili; tomatoes in; simmer 10 min to a thick, sweet sauce (shell liquor in if made). 10 min
- Shrimp in for 1 min; ouzo poured over and, if the stove allows, touched with flame for ten dramatic seconds; otherwise simmered 1 min to burn off. 1 min
- Feta chunks nestled on top; lid on 2 min: the cheese should slump and half-melt, never dissolve. 2 min
- Oregano and parsley over; the pan goes straight to the table with bread. The feta-tomato-ouzo pockets are the prize; distribute them justly.
How it should come out
- No colour on the aromatics. Check before the tomatoes go in: the onion is translucent and slack with no gold at the edges and the garlic has not taken any colour. In the finished pan there are no brown flecks showing against the red.
- The sauce is reduced far enough that a spoon dragged across the pan bottom leaves a track that holds a beat, and a film of orange oil has come to the surface.
- The feta is still in liftable chunks with slumped, glossy shoulders. Nothing has dissolved; the tomato around it is smooth and red, not pink and grainy.
- The shrimp are loose C-curls, opaque through the back, tails bright. They finished under the lid, so none has tightened into a ring.
- The ouzo reads as a thread of anise behind the tomato with no alcohol sting at the back of the throat. Taste the sauce with a crumb of feta on the spoon rather than without: the pan should land on the right side of salty once the cheese is in, and never before it.
Where it goes wrong A thin, weeping pan, because the tomatoes went in short of reduced. The shrimp liquor and the lid's condensation finish the job, the feta floats instead of nestling, and the bread comes away wet rather than loaded.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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