On a Roll: Blackened Shrimp and Bacon Po-Boy

I guess you could say I’m a bit obsessed with po-boys lately. In the weeks leading up to the po-boy festival here in New Orleans, I visited a couple of my favorite po-boy spots to reminisce, to remember how good the basics can be. I had fried shrimp at Parkway Bakery and Tavern, and shrimp and oyster at Crabby Jack’s, and then those wonderful little odd po-boys at the fest. I thought I’d had my fill for a while, until Paul told me he’d overhead someone talking about a blackened shrimp po-boy. My interest was piqued. Then, he said, “It’d be good with a little bacon sprinkled on it.” Yes, it would. Then, “And maybe some goat cheese?” I almost fainted. Yes, blackened shrimp with bacon and goat cheese would be good – very, very good.  If it sounds bizarre or even blasphemous to load a seafood po-boy down with extras like bacon and cheese, consider the Peacemaker, that ultra-delicious po-boy of fried oysters, bacon, and American cheese. Sounds crazy, but it’s fantastic. If yellow, processed American cheese can’t hurt a po-boy, then surely goat cheese couldn’t.

We thought for a minute about making a fancy mayonnaise to go with this, but ended up sticking with plain mayo. And you know, that was a good move, because the spicy blackening mix rubs off the shrimp as you scrunch it together for eating purposes, forming a little mayo-blackening mixture sauce. And the goat cheese will melt a little bit of itself into that sauce too, and then you get something that the po-boy gods would be proud of. About the cabbage: it’s hardier and more assertive than lettuce or soft greens, with a flavor that can stand up to and support all of this spicy-salty goodness; plus its crunch actually holds up to all the smooshing and chomping that happens in the process of eating a po-boy like this. I love it.

“Blackening” is a spice-and-sear technique made popular in the early 1980s by New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme, who blackened so many redfish fillets that they nearly became extinct.  These days, you can find all sorts of blackened proteins on New Orleans menus, from seafood to steaks.  It’s essential to use a cast-iron skillet to get anything blackened–the burned-on bits are where the “black” comes from, after all. If you don’t have one, use a skillet without a nonstick coating, so you can get some brownish burned bits that will hopefully stick on your shrimp. This blackening mixture comes from the marvelous website, chilicheesefries.net.