Recipes Pan-Roasted Shrimp with Jalapeño Corn-Bread Cakes Be the first to rate & review! Chef Way Chef Donald Link uses satsuma juice (from an Asian citrus fruit similar to a mandarin orange) to flavor the sweet shrimp here. He then studs the spicy corn-bread cakes with fresh Southern shell beans.Easy Way Replace the satsuma juice with ordinary orange juice and buy baby lima beans (fresh or frozen) as a stand-in for the shell beans.Plus: F&W's Fish and Seafood Cooking Guide More Shrimp Recipes Southern Food By Donald Link Donald Link F&W Star Chef » See All F&W Chef Superstars Restaurants: Herbsaint, Cochon, Cochon Butcher, Calcasieu, Pêche (New Orleans) Education: California Culinary Academy (San Francisco) What style of cooking are you most famous for? Southern Cajun. New Orleans has always had its own unique food, and Cajun culture is two and a half hours west of here. I wanted to bring the soul of that to New Orleans in a way that wasn’t overly touristy. What dish defines your style of cooking? Gumbo started it all. And the system behind it, of making stocks and getting good ingredients and coaxing the flavors out of them. It’s time-consuming, too, so I think it put me in this mind-set of taking time with food to create something special, as opposed to just knocking out dinner. Is there a culinary skill or a type of dish that you wish you were better at? I’ve had this weird interest in making hand-pulled Chinese noodles. I saw it done recently, and then looked it up on the Internet. It looks so easy, but it’s not. Some people spend three months apprenticing just to learn that one thing. Who taught you to cook? My grandfather, while I was growing up in southwest Louisiana. While everyone else was eating at McDonald’s, my grandfather was cooking squirrel and lima beans and ham hocks. What is the best dish for a neophyte cook to try? Roast chicken. It can be really bad if it’s not done right, awesome if it’s done well. It teaches you about heat and time and doneness, how to crisp the skin, how to get it golden, how to get it cooked through without drying it out. Obviously you can say to cook it at 350° for an hour and 15 minutes, but ovens are different, chickens are different. You need to feel a connection to the food to do it well. You love chile peppers. Do you have a favorite?Criolla sella. It’s an orange Bolivian pepper. I discovered it almost 10 years ago, when a farmer here in town asked to grow things for me. We found it in a catalog. It’s got the perfect balance of sweetness and heat. It’s not like a jalapeño, which can be too spicy. You get more of that chile flavor as opposed to the heat. What’s a restaurant you’re willing to travel for? Hawk’s Crawfish. A lot of places do crawfish, but somehow they always do it better. My cousins are rice and crawfish farmers and they have special fields that they sell to Hawk’s, and the restaurant keeps them in freshwater tanks for 24 hours, so they’re super-clean. And they cook them in a way that makes them super-tender. I’ve made pilgrimages. It’s two and a half hours by car one way. And I’ve done it one day, just to eat the crawfish. Name one secret-weapon ingredient. Anchovies. Mashed into a paste, anchovies are a great seasoning for roast lamb. If I’m boning a leg or a shoulder, I’ll make a paste of garlic, sea salt, anchovies and lemon to rub inside the meat before I roll it up. Once it’s cooked, you can never tell it’s in there. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Updated on October 8, 2015 Print Rate It Share Share Tweet Pin Email Active Time: 1 hrs Total Time: 1 hrs 30 mins Yield: 6 Ingredients 1 cup fresh or frozen baby lima beans 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/4 cup minced onion 6 garlic cloves—2 minced, 4 sliced 1 small jalapeño, seeded and minced 1/2 teaspoon chopped thyme, plus 4 thyme sprigs 1 1/2 packed cups of crumbled corn bread (6 ounces) 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk Salt and freshly ground pepper 1 large egg, beaten All-purpose flour, for dusting 6 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 ounces thinly sliced pancetta, cut into thin strips 1 1/4 pounds medium shrimp, shelled and deveined 1 Thai chile, minced 1 cup fresh orange juice 1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange zest Directions Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Add the lima beans and cook until tender. Drain and rinse under cold water. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add the onion, minced garlic and jalapeño and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer the onion mixture to a medium bowl and add the lima beans, chopped thyme and corn bread. Stir in the buttermilk and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the egg. Using lightly moistened hands, form the mixture into 6 cakes, about 1 inch thick. Dust the cakes with flour and refrigerate for about 30 minutes, until chilled. Wipe out the skillet. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in 2 tablespoons of the oil in the skillet. Dust the cakes with flour again. Add them to the skillet and cook over moderate heat, turning once, until golden and crisp, about 6 minutes. Transfer the cakes to plates and keep warm. Wipe out the skillet. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in the skillet. Add the pancetta and cook over high heat, stirring, until lightly browned, about 1 minute. Add the sliced garlic and thyme sprigs and cook until the garlic is lightly browned, about 30 seconds. Season the shrimp with salt and add to the skillet along with the Thai chile. Cook, stirring, until the shrimp are slightly curled and pink, about 2 minutes. Add the orange juice and zest and cook until the juice is slightly reduced and the shrimp are cooked through, about 1 minute. Discard the thyme sprigs and swirl in the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter. Spoon the shrimp and sauce over the cakes and serve right away. Make Ahead The corn cakes can be prepared through Step 1 and refrigerated overnight. Rate it Print