Avocado and Shrimp Salad Roulades

This is my attempt at a recipe in the Eleven Madison Park cookbook, with a few changes based on what I had on hand. It’s important to note that you should use ripe but still firm avocados for this recipe – the ones I used were a little softer than I liked, but were the best I could do at the local grocery store.  You can also check out a video of EMP’s Daniel Humm making this dish here: http://vimeo.com/6719882

Poached shrimp:

1.5 lbs shrimp, deveined and deshelled

1 cup white wine

1 cup orange juice

2 cups water

1 stalk celery, roughly chopped

1 medium onion, sliced

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon black pepper

Add everything but the shrimp to a medium pot, bring to a boil, add the shrimp, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the size of the shrimp. Remove the shrimp from the liquid, and chill in the fridge.

Shrimp Salad:

Poached shrimp

1.5 tbsp mayonnaise

1.5 tbsp greek yogurt

½ Granny Smith Apple, peeled

2 teaspoons lime juice

2 teaspoons salt

Pinch cayenne pepper

Avocado pieces

Cut the shrimp into pieces and add to a bowl. Dice the apple into small pieces and add to the bowl, along with the lime juice, mayo, yogurt, salt and cayenne. I held off adding diced avocado until it was time to prepare the roulades, since I wasn’t sure if they’re oxidize in the interim.

Lemon oil:

Zest of ½ lemon

2 tbsp canola oil

Place in a ramekin or small dish and let sit for at least 10 minutes to infuse

Greek Yogurt Sauce:

¼ cup greek yogurt

¾ teaspoon lime juice

Pinch salt

Small pinch cayenne

Roulades:

2 avocados

Shrimp salad

Lemon oil

Yogurt Sauce

Parsley (for garnish)

Purple Basil (for garnish)

Smoked paprika (for garnish)

You’ll need ½ to ¾ of an avocado per roll. Remove the pit from your avocados, then quarter and peel. Use a mandolin to slice into very thin slices. Arrange the slices on a piece of parchment paper (use the slices from near the center of the avocado; the ends can be chopped and added to the shrimp salad), overlapping each other. At this point, the recipe calls for the avocados to be vacuum sealed – I don’t own an industrial grade cryo vac, so I placed another piece of parchment over top of the avocado and used a rolling pin to help the pieces stick together. Don’t apply to much pressure, or you will squash the avocado (like I did).

Spoon the shrimp salad on a piece of plastic wrap, and roll into a roulade. Un-roll on top of the avocado, so the salad sits in the middle. Carefully bring up the back of the parchment paper and roll the avocado over the filling, creating a cylinder. Brush with lemon oil.

Place a spoonful of yogurt sauce on the plate and drag a spoon through it. Garnish the avocado roll with parsley and purple basil. Sprinkle some smoked paprika on the plate for color.

Maybe the rolling pin wasn't the best idea...