Trinidad & Tobago Dish: Pepper Shrimp

Trinidad and Tobago is a Caribbean nation of two main islands and several other smaller islands, with Venezuela as the country's closest neighbor. It was a British colony from the early 1800s until the early 1960s, when the islands gained independence. The islands have a highly diverse population of slightly less than than 1.5 million, with many people descending from slaves or laborers from Africa and India. English is the official language of Trinidad and Tobago, although other languages have influenced the spoken form of English, as the original native people, along with Europeans who spoke Spanish, Portuguese and French, all have made contributions to the language and culture of the islands. This shrimp dish shows the Chinese influence on Trinidad and Tobago, but also how the island culture has added its own features to the recipe, one of which is the use of ketchup.

You can make this is as hot and spicy as you choose, but it's my understanding the islanders like it very spicy hot, even providing bottles or dishes of hot pepper sauce (made from scotch bonnet or habanero chili peppers) for those who want to intensify the heat. Calm down if you don't like the heat. I've added some notes on how to lessen the fiery tastes. I've only made this dish once, but I intend to make it again... and again. All of the ingredients are readily available in supermarkets, although on the islands, a healthy dose of "green seasoning" would replace some of the individual ingredients. Green seasoning is a mixture of seasonings, with various green elements, like cilantro, being the main component. Ah, so that's why they call it, "green seasoning!" They can't fool me. Trinidad and Tobago "green seasoning" is not necessarily something you will find easily on a worldwide basis in supermarkets, although I bought some I found online. I also bought some real Trinidad and Tobago hot pepper sauce, which has some mango and other ingredients. After first tasting just a small drop, I wondered, at what temperature does glass melt? But the bottle survived and feeling returned to my mouth after a short time. 

Ingredients:

1 pound large or medium large shrimp, already cooked shrimp sold in markets are fine
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1/2 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup mild red pepper (red bell pepper is fine)
1 habanero or scotch bonnet, finely chopped*
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 garlic cloves, chopped
half of a well chopped green onion (primarily the light green part)
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2/3 cup tomato ketchup
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
2/3 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
garnish with 3 chopped green onions (scallions), with some green

Mix the lemon (or lime) juice in with the rinsed and well drained shrimp, set aside. In a skillet, heat the oil over medium heat, then turn the heat to low. Saute the onion, ginger and hot chili pepper for about 2 minutes. Now add the cilantro, the garlic, the green onion half and the thyme leaves; saute a further 2 minutes. Add the soy sauce, the ketchup and the sesame oil, mix in well. Now add the shrimp with the lemon juice. Mix and turn the shrimp to coat with the sauce. Make sure the shrimp get heated through, then season with salt and pepper. The sauce was nice and thick, but don't be afraid to adjust it to the way you want it. You can add a little water to thin it (many of the recipes I checked used some water), or you can add a little more ketchup or even some cornstarch and water to thicken it. Garnish with chopped green onions and serve with rice.    

* If you like "some" heat, but not an inferno, use just 1 teaspoon finely chopped habanero or scotch bonnet. If you don't really like much heat at all, skip the fresh chili pepper and just add a good pinch of cayenne pepper. When mixed in with the other ingredients, this should keep any serious heat from the dish. As I've noted here before, chili peppers can vary tremendously in heat, even habanero type chilies, with some being mouth numbing, while others lack much heat intensity.

WORD HISTORY:
Lent-This noun, related to "long" and "length," both words from the Germanic roots of English, goes back to Indo European "dlonghos," which meant, "long." This gave Old Germanic "langaz," with the same meaning, and this was coupled with the Old Germanic word "tinas/tinaz," which meant "day" (it is related to Latin "dies") to form, "langitinaz," literally, "long(er) day," which was the West Germanic word for "spring" (the season), as it referred to the lengthening amount of daylight during that part of the year. This gave Old English "lencten," which meant, "spring." By the 1100s, the English had used the term to designate the 40 days of fast before Easter and the word had by then become "Lenten," and the meaning for "springtime" began to be overtaken by "spring" by about 1400. To my knowledge, English is the only Germanic language to have used the word with the religious meaning. By about 1400 the word had been often been shortened to "Lent," but English retained both forms. The other West Germanic languages have: German "Lenz," Low German "Lent" (whether this spelling was influenced by English, I'm not sure), Dutch "lente." I could not find a form in hard to research Frisian. These Germanic forms all mean "spring," although only Dutch uses it as their standard word for that time of year. By the way, German once used "Lenzing" as its word for the third month of the year, before settling on "März," as the standard word. Like its English cousin "March," März is a word going back to Latin and relating to the Roman god "Mars."