Shrimp Viennese
When I shared my dinner photo with you the other day as evidence that I had indeed resisted takeout temptation, a lot of you asked for the recipe, and I'm here to oblige.
This recipe comes compliments of my aunt, and she got it from someone at church, and that means I haven't the faintest idea where it originally came from.
Basically, though, it's a rice casserole with a delicious shrimp and mushroom cream sauce.
(I just want to say that creamy sauces are pretty much the best thing in the whole world.)
I don't have step-by-step pictures, but I'm sure that if you can read, you can manage with the photos that I do have.
Ok. So, to make this, you need shrimp. That automatically puts this into not-so-frugal territory, but as shrimp dishes go, this one does stretch 'em more than usual. So, you could think of it as frugal if you're comparing shrimp recipes to shrimp recipes.
Just don't compare it to a lentil soup recipe.
Anyway.
For the tastiest shrimp experience, do yourself a favor and buy raw shrimp. Pre-cooked, pre-peeled shrimp are handy, to be sure, but they just do not taste as delicious.
The recipe calls for a pound of cooked, peeled shrimp, but I just steam a pound of raw, unpeeled shrimp and call it good.
To help the shrimp distribute through the dish well, slice them in half lengthwise. They should still have their shrimpy shape...they'll just be thinner. You could just chop them in half, but that wouldn't look as beautiful.
You'll also need cooked rice. The recipe calls for 3 cups, but since I like my rice to be sauce-erific,I only use 2 cups of rice. More sauce, less rice, I say!
You can use white or brown rice, but I usually use brown. Because when I'm making a recipe that calls for cream and a stick of butter, health is clearly my top priority.
Speaking of butter and cream...
That's the sauce. Making it is pretty simple...it's a lot like making a cream soup base (like we do for Baked Potato Soup.) You saute chopped onions in butter, stir in flour, stir in the liquids, bring it to a boil while stirring, and boil it for a minute to thicken it up.
After the sauce is done, stir in the cooked shrimp.
Pour the sauce over top of the rice.
Cover with foil and bake at 350 ° F for 15-20 minutes, or until heated through. Be careful not to overbake it because that will dry your shrimp out. You're not trying to cook anything; you're just bringing it all to a even temperature.
Dish up onto your $0.50 white Goodwill plate and admire how beautiful it looks.
How many this serves sort of depends on how hungry your diners are, but I'd say that you could easily feed 4 adults with this recipe (it serves the six of us just fine, but my children definitely don't have adult-like appetites at this point in their lives!)
This dish is definitely best the day it's made because the chilled sauce doesn't reheat all that well and because it soaks into the rice, making the dish not as creamy. So, don't make an enormous pan of this unless you're feeding a lot of hungry people.
Shrimp Viennese
2 tablespoons onion
6 mushrooms, sliced
½ cup (1 stick) butter
1 tablespoon flour
½ cup chicken broth
½ cup cream
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon white cooking wine
1 teaspoon dill
1 pound shrimp, cooked, peeled, and sliced in half lengthwise
2-3 cups cooked rice
In a saucepan over medium heat, saute onions and mushrooms in butter until onion is softened. Whisk in flour. Whisk in chicken broth, cream, lemon juice, wine, and dill. Cook and stir over medium heat until sauce boils. Boil and stir for 1 minute to thicken sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste (I usually add none, but if your butter and broth are unsalted, you may need to add salt).
Stir shrimp into sauce. Place rice into an 8x8 inch baking dish and pour the sauce evenly over top. Cover pan with foil and bake at 350 ° F for 15-20 minutes, or until heated through.
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Excellent timing! I have cream to use up, frozen raw shrimp in the freezer [1], and mushrooms I just cooked to keep them from going bad.
Have you ever tried cooking raw shrimp in the sauce? I'm going to do it unless you've tried it and it was disasterous.
[1] There's cooked shrimp in the freezer as well but that's in lieu of take-out.[2]
[2] Although I'm not entirely sure that frozen shrimp is cheaper than take out.
I haven't...I don't suppose anything bad would happen to the sauce if you cooked it longer than the recipe calls for (I'm thinking they probably wouldn't cook through in the time it takes to cook the sauce).
Cutting the shrimp in half lengthwise would be sort of a pain with raw shrimp, but you could always just skip that step if you were going to cook them in the sauce.
Here's how I did it:
Shrimp Viennese a la WilliamB (serves 2)
Note that all amounts are approximate and you can vary them more.
rice
2-3 T. olive oil
1 c. chopped onion
1/2 lb sliced mushrooms
12 oz. raw shrimp
2 T. flour
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. unsalted chicken stock
2 T. white wine
few drops green Tabasco
thyme
salt & pepper
- Start rice cooking, however you prefer to do so; keep it warm when it's done.
- Heat oil (I used a 2 qt pot).
- Slowly saute onion and mushrooms in oil, till cooked as you like it.
- Meanwhile, cut each shrimp into 3-5 pieces, depending on the size of the shrimp.
- When onions done, turn heat to medium low (if it isn't there already), add flour, stir till all mixed in and light brown.
- Slowly add cream and stock, stirring till the flour-and-oil roux is mixed in and the liquid thickened.
- Add shrimp, cook till shrimp are done, stirring occasionally.
- Add seasonings to taste.
- Serve over warm rice.
This looks super yummy! I know the cream probably makes it super delicious, but I try not to cook with cream, and the rest of it would probably go to waste in my house and show up on a Food Waste Friday post. Could you substitute the cream for milk (preferably skim, since that's what I always have in the house?) I did this the other day with tomato soup I made and though it wasn't as deliciously creamy as it could be, it was much healthier.
I'm just curious!
You could...the sauce would just not be as fabulous. Can you buy one of those teeny containers of cream? I think they only hold something like a cup, right? And you could freeze the other half cup for when you make this again.
Also, cream takes yogurt smoothies to a whole new level. Not that I've ever done that to use some up. 😉
YUM- Thanks!
I always cut my shrimp up into bite size pieces. May be an illusion, but I think I can get away with less shrimp that way. (It LOOKS like you get more shrimp when you have 9 pieces instead of 3, lol) Big sure is prettier though!
This may not be the most frugal meal ever, but I would bet that this shrimp meal is a lot more frugal than a shrimp meal in the restaurant. So that gets points for me. I love shrimp so it's a good splurge!
It's probably cheaper than a meal at Chik-Fil-A for the six of us, actually! You can cook almost anything at home, even fancy foods, for less than what takeout costs.
Oh I agree it's cheaper than most restaurant meals (shrimp or not). Shimp is more expensive for us here since we are pretty much smack in the middle of the country so it's not really a frugal meal as far as home cooked stuff goes- I am really going all out to buy fresh- which is nearly impossible anyway! I am so jealous of anyone that can buy fresh seafood at reasonable prices!!!
Megan,
I know what you mean. Out here in the Midwest, good seafood is hard to find and it's usually really expensive. But this recipe sounds amazing so I'm going to try it when I can find shrimp on sale! 🙂 Thanks, FG!
In my head, I'm naming this dish after me. "Shrimp Vaness"
I cannot wait to make this. My husband's taste buds are going to explode with happiness. Mine, too. FG - you rock.
I really want to try this, but am unsure what 'Chicken Broth' would be in the UK? Is it a thicker (reduced) version of stock? Please can someone help me out?
(I'm taking it from the photo's that the shrimp maybe prawn in UK? - looks the same size etc)....
Stock and broth are about the same thing.
More specifically: there are two products that are very similar but not quite he same. There is so much confusion that there isn't even consensus on exactly what the two products are. Roughly, one is used to make something else (such as sauce), the other is consumed more directly (such as soup). Unfortunately there's also no consensus on which product is broth and which is stock.
Yup, what WilliamB said. Chicken stock will be just fine and prawns are shrimp.
Thanks both!
Me again - this seems like a lot of butter for the amount of flour used. Do you know why?
I don't! The sauce doesn't end up being particularly thick...it's thinner than, say, gravy. But it's supposed to kind of sink down into the rice, so it it was too thick, it wouldn't work very well.
If you prefer a thicker sauce, I'm sure you could use two tablespoons and it would be fine.
I'm thinking of using less fat.
The rule of thumb for roux (what you get when you cook flour in fat) is equal amount of fat and flour; the rule of thumb for a medium-thick sauce is 2T. fat, 2T. flour, 1c. liquid. This is why I was curious about 8T. butter and 1T. flour.
But a bunch of the butter got all into the mushrooms and onions - I'm sure, making them wonderful. But I was thinking of sauteing the veggies in a bit of oil, then adding just part of the butter and the flour. Not as wonderfully butter-y amazing, but the quantity on the butter seems like a lot. But only for those of us watching our hip-fluff - on YOUR family - you're plenty active to absorb it no problem!
I ended up making it with about 3T oil, lots of onion and mushrooms, and 2T. flour. See above more more details. Made with 12 oz shrimp (that's the size bag I had) it served only 2 of us.
@ Jo@simplybeingmum, yes - shrimp in the US would be the same thing that you would call a prawn. (We only call them "prawns" here if they're really big - think U-12 or U-8 size.)
And in US lingo, "chicken broth" would be closer to what you might call "chicken boullion" as it's typically thinner and contains less gelatinized collagen than a stock (made and flavoured primarily with bones) would be. Over here, chicken broth is a clear liquid flavoured with chicken meat and a mirepoix (onion, celery and carrots).
Hope that helps. FG - this DOES look delicious! I'm guessing it would make a great use for leftover cooked rice and/or shrimp (which occasionally we have here in my household). I think we might substitute tarragon for dill. YUM!
Yes, that's true! If you've got leftover rice, you can skip the whole cooking-the-rice step.
Thanks Tamera. From that description I reckon a shop purchased stock cube is absolutely fine, as that type of stock is just flavouring with water added. Over here we get 'King Prawns' and normal size prawns... perhaps that's the difference? Hmm off to investigate...intrigued... 🙂
As with stock and broth, the language is all mixed up. Technically they're different but closely related critters. In practice, "prawn" tends to be used to mean "large shrimp" ... so pretty much a synonym for "jumbo shrimp." You can use either in this dish.
Another thing? Stock cubes tend to be much saltier than canned or homemade (at least the ones I've bought in the UK) so be careful with the seasoning levels.
Sounds fabulous!!! I'm the only one in the family that likes shrimp though so not sure if I'll get the chance to try it!! Maybe I can sub chicken for the hubby?
Awesome. I just got some free coupons in the mail. I did not have to print them so that was nice too.
I found a recipe on the web that is similar to your recipe called, Shrimp Viennese. Here is the link:
http://littlethislittlethat.net/2011/03/30/shrimp-viennese/
Kristen, it appears the link to the printable recipe is broken.
Ok! I fixed it. I don't know why it was behaving oddly like that.
It kinda resembles shrimp and grits -- my favorite!
Prepping for the little one's coming arrival, I was wondering if this might be something you could make and freeze (for up to a month)? I'm trying to stock our freezer up with things my husband can just take out and heat up!
Yum.... I'm adding this one to our to try list. Also, the other day I was looking for one of your recipes and I noticed your recipe index tab is gone or I just don't see it. Or maybe you never had one?? I think you had a tab called Wednesday baking or something like that.
I did have those tabs up there, but then I needed to make room for my ebook tab, so I rearranged things a bit. You can still find the baking and recipes categories in the drop down menu on the right hand side of my blog, though. 🙂
This looks delicious and I am going to make it this weekend! Does it keep? I am thinking of cooking it Friday and then using it for lunches Monday or Tuesday. I'm hungry just looking at it!
It looks great, if only I ate shrimp.
You could use chicken if you wanted!
Have been looking for something like this for a while. Thanks heaps.
This looks awesome. I just happened to buy a bag of shrimp this week for shrimp salad, but this looks way better. Since all the recipes you've shared have been very well received in my household so far, I'll be trying this one very soon. Thanks!
Looking forward to trying Shrimp Viennese in Vienna. The irony being it's a little hard to find shrimp in our landlocked capital. I'm sure I can find a seafood market around here somewhere :).
Great! I made this dish for lunch today. We really like it.
Greetings from Poland 🙂
Just made this for dinner - SO YUMMY and super simple! Used frozen shrimp and it was still excellent! Thank you!
I know what you mean about the butter and cream. That's why I had to let go of my love for Pastry Chef'ing. Also why I never make mashed potatoes and I love those too. I do make time for the occasional cream or butter sauce though.