BudgetTravel

Spoon the salsa de tuna on a plate, place the budin in the middle of the salsa, and add the whipping cream on top. Dust with finely grated Mexican chocolate. Garnish the plate with flowers. Serve immediately.

Makes 12 five-ounce ramekins.

Note: The salsa de tuna will last two days in the refrigerator.

Shrimp Sautéed with Garlic and Chile Guajillo (Camarones al Ajillo)

Playa Panteón, in Puerto Angel, is named for the beautiful graveyard perched up on the hill overlooking the sea. It is here that our friend Panchito, who started Piña Palmera, is buried. Always a lucky person, he is in a resting place lulled by the sounds of the waves at the beach. On the beach, there are a few places to eat with the fishermen's families who over the years have grown to be professional restaurateurs. This recipe was inspired by Señora Torres of Restaurant Susi, where you can eat great seafood while you wiggle your toes in the sand. Serve this with Arroz blanco con plátanos fritos.

INGREDIENTS

For the chiles guajillos:

3-4 chiles guajillos, stemmed, seeded, and deveined
1/2 cup sunflower or vegetable oil

For the shrimp stock:

1/4 medium white onion
3 garlic cloves
Juice of 1 lime or lemon
A few black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 chile de árbol
Pinch of salt

For the shrimp:

2 tablespoons chile guajillo oil or olive oil
11/2 pounds head-on shrimp, shelled, deveined, and deheaded, or 1 pound headless shrimp
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley leaves
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon vanilla olive oil

METHOD

For the chiles guajillos:

Wash the chiles well and cut them crosswise in very thin strips to make rings. Place them in a glass jar with the oil. You can do this the day before, if you like.

For the shrimp stock:

In a heavy 4-quart stockpot, put the shrimp heads and shells in 2 quarts of water with the onion, garlic, lime juice, peppercorns, bay leaves, chile de árbol and salt. Cover and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes. Strain the stock and reserve. If the stock is very watery, reduce some more and reserve.

For the shrimp:

You can cook these in 2 batches, reserving the cooked shrimp in a bowl, until the other batch is done, and then return them for one minute in the sauce to reheat and serve.

Heat a medium frying pan with the chile guajillo oil. Add 1/2 of the shrimp, 1/2 of the garlic, and 1/2 of the parsley, and sauté 1 to 2 minutes. When one side of the shrimp is pink, turn them over, and add half of the chile strips. Reserve the oil in the jar to soak more guajillos. Continue to cook over medium heat until cooked through, about 1-2 minutes. When the shrimp are cooked, remove them and set aside. Repeat with the other half of the shrimp and remove. Add 8 ounces of strained shrimp stock. Reduce sauce to half, uncovered, and then add salt and pepper to taste. Add the softened butter bit by bit, shaking the pan to "mound" the sauce. Taste and add salt or lime juice for flavor. Return the shrimp to the sauté pan, over low heat, to reheat and coat them with the sauce. Swirl in the vanilla olive oil.

Serve as a main course around hot mounded cooked rice on a plate or serve with hot tostadas or bollilos as an appetizer.

Makes 4 servings.

Note: You can make vanilla flavored olive oil by heating three beans in virgin olive oil slightly, until it gives off its scent. Let it sit for a week or two and use in dressings, or fish or shrimp dishes.

Recipes above excerpted from Seasons of My Heart, A Culinary Journey Through Oaxaca, Mexico. (Ballantine Books, November 1999) Reprinted with permission of the author. To learn how to buy the book, write to Jacqui Sattler in Pennsylvania. Her e-mail address is seasonsofmyheart_cookingschool@yahoo.com.