Rick Dennis's Recipe

Yatti Shrimp

Category: Recipes

2 lbs small raw shrimp - peeled and cleaned
1 large onion - chopped
1 stick salted butter (not margarine)
Fresh "course ground" black pepper.

Raw white rice (NOT "minute" type rice)
Salt (to taste - for rice only)

Serves 4-6.
Prep Time: About an hour

In a deep 10 inch (5 quart) pot place the stick of butter to melt. Add the onion and cook over medium heat until the onion is clarified and the water has cooked out. Add shrimp and pepper (to taste) and continue to cook over a medium heat. Use a pepper grinder set on "course" as the pieces of the ground peppercorn will camouflage any bits of black missed in cleaning the shrimp. Cook (once again) until the water/juice the shrimp produce has cooked out. You'll never get ALL of the juices to evaporate, but do the best you can to cook most of it out.

Cook rice by using twice as much salted water as rice. 1 cup rice? 2 cups water. Bring it to a boil then crack the cover slightly and cook on low heat until the water is gone. Rice is not boiled to cook, it is steamed. I use 1 tsp. salt to each 1 cup of rice. Salt absolutely must be added to the water when cooking rice or you'll never get the rice salted enough at the table without over salting.

Serve shrimp mixture over fluffy white rice. Be sure to have hot sauce and Creole seasoning available on the table.

NOTE: This is very filling. Serve small portions as you can always get more. This recipe is definitely not approved by the American Heart Association as it is very high is both fat and cholesterol. I prefer adding a few shots of hot sauce to my plate where my wife prefers Creole seasoning on hers. Most people will look at this recipe and think the shrimp will be overcooked and rubbery. This is not the case. The resulting product has an unusually sweet flavor naturally.

This recipe came from the dark recesses of my mind while I was shrimping in the bayou of Louisiana one year and was getting burned out on the "normal" ways to prepare shrimp. The "Yatti" part of the name came from the N.O. Saints football team as their slogan that year was "Where Y'at?" Everyone that has tried this at my table has loved it.