My grandmother may have passed away in my childhood but the kitchen lessons I learnt from her are carried on way onto my adult years. One of these is that in cooking, if you want something to taste the way it ought to, there are no shortcuts. To this day though, I still haven’t defined what ‘ought to’ means yet I rarely ever use instant sauces and mixes. I always cook from scratch, never mind if it entails doing tedious prep work. Even when I’m in the city, where time is always of the essence, I find myself cooking the way I was trained, with minimal omission of steps. I might as well just eat a sandwich on the run than some haphazardly prepared stew. Now, make no mistake, I’m no snob and very tolerant of other people’s cooking. It’s just my own that always has to follow Lola’s rules. I’m making that qualification lest I be banned from friends’ dining tables. :hungry:

Anyway, one practice that is already being abandoned is extracting the essence from shrimp heads and shells to flavour whatever is being cooked with shrimps. I find this a necessity if one wishes to have a tastier dish. No amount of salt or patis (fish sauce) can equal a cup of shrimp extract. Compared to patis, one can control the amount of sodium. When I serve dishes cooked with shrimp extract, everybody notices how malinamnam or tasty these are. The only drawback is that they are a bit darker than the usual, meaning less photogenic. But then, life is about trade-offs!

Fresh Shrimp Extract

Ingredients:
Heads and shells of shrimps used for whatever you’re cooking
Water

Equipment:
Stone mortar and pestle (a wooden set might retain the smell forever)
Fine strainer

Procedure:



Place the shrimp heads and shells in the mortar and pound till soft enough to squeeze over a strainer. The first extraction yields a thick pasty consistency even without water.


Repeat the process of pounding and squeezing, this time with small amounts of water, until the shells render an almost clear liquid.


Use to flavour pancit (noodles), broth, stews or stir-fries but make sure it goes through a long rolling boil to avoid the malanam taste (malansa or biting, slimey fishy taste).