Food & Drink

New Orleans-Style Shrimp Remoulade Salad

The Mid-Atlantic meets New Orleans’s Magazine Street at chef Kristen Essig’s new D.C. spot

By Caroline Sanders Clements
Recipe by Kristen Essig

July 6, 2021

Photo: Jen Chase

This year, the lauded New Orleans chef Kristen Essig moved from the Crescent City to the nation’s capital to open Dauphine’s, where she employs mid-Atlantic ingredients to make Louisiana classics, including duck jambalaya and seafood gumbo. Warm up for dinner at the bar with riffs on a St. Charles Punch and Roffignac that come courtesy of the James Beard Award–winning barman Neal Bodenheimer. His drinks make ideal pairings with Essig’s food, such as this shrimp remoulade wedge salad.

“Eating a salad is all about the perfect bite,” Essig says. “The only thing I don’t love about a typical wedge is that nothing really sits on top of the salad because of the cut of the lettuce. So, I like to slice the lettuce into a flat round, which allows you to eat all the components at once.”

The recipe may look involved, mixing up chef Paul Prudhomme’s remoulade recipe and a homemade gribiche sauce before the salad takes shape, but Essig encourages home chefs to try it anyway. “The biggest tip I have is not to overthink the dish,” Essig says. “It’s a salad, so have your components made ahead of time. Assemble right before eating so the lettuce stays crisp.”

Ingredients

Dauphine’s Shrimp Remoulade (Yield: 2–4 servings)
For the Gribiche Sauce (Yield: 2 cups)
- 1 ⅛ cups hard boiled eggs, chopped (about 4 or 5 eggs)
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise
- ½ tbsp. creole mustard
- ⅛ tsp. dill
- ⅛ cup pickles, chopped
- ⅛ cup capers, chopped
- ½ lemon, juice and zest
- Crystal hot sauce, to taste
- Salt, to taste
For Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Remoulade (Yield: 1½ cups)
- *Dauphine’s uses Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Remoulade recipe, from his cookbook, Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen. The only change Dauphine’s makes to the recipe is using Tabasco pepper mash instead of Tabasco sauce.
- 2 egg yolks
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup celery, finely chopped
- ½ cup green onions, finely chopped
- ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
- ¼ cup fresh or prepared horseradish, finely grated
- ¼ lemon, seeded
- 1 bay leaf, crumbled
- 2 tbsp. creole mustard (preferred) or brown mustard
- 2 tbsp. ketchup
- 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp. prepared mustard
- 1 tbsp. white vinegar
- 1 tbsp. Tabasco sauce
- 1 tbsp. minced garlic
- 2 tsp. sweet paprika
- 1 tsp. salt
For the Shrimp Remoulade (Yield: 2–4 servings)
- Shrimp, peeled and split in half horizontally (Essig recommends four shrimp per person)
- 4 cups of water
- ¼ cup rice wine vinegar
- ¼ onion
- ¼ head garlic
- ½ fresh bay leaf
- 1 ½ sprigs thyme
- ¼ orange
- ¼ lemon
- ¼ cup salt
- Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Remoulade
- 1 head of lettuce
- Kosher salt, to taste
- Pepper, to taste
- Juice of ½ a lemon
- Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
- ¼ cup Gribiche Sauce
- Pickled red onion, to taste (Essig uses roughly 1 tbsp. per iceberg slice)
- Herbs and other seasonal garnishes, to taste (Right now, Dauphine’s is using marinated green tomatoes, chervil, bronze fennel, and dill, but year-round ingredients that Essig recommends include freshly clipped herbs such as tarragon, basil, or chives)

Preparation

For the Gribiche Sauce: Mix all ingredients together (they do not need to be processed). The sauce can be kept in the refrigerator for up to four days.

For chef Paul Prudhomme’s Remoulade: In a blender or food processor, beat the egg yolks for 2 minutes. With the machine running, add the oil in a thin stream. Blend in the remaining ingredients one at a time until it is well mixed, and the lemon rind is finely chopped. Chill well.

For Dauphine’s Shrimp Remoulade: Prepare shrimp by peeling and cutting horizontally. In a pot on the stove, combine water, rice wine vinegar, onion, garlic, fresh bay leaf, thyme, orange, lemon, and salt to make a seasoned court bouillon. Bring to a boil, add shrimp, stir, then turn off heat. Let the shrimp sit for 30 seconds. Immediately transfer cooked shrimp to a sheet pan to cool in the refrigerator. Once cooled, toss the shrimp in Chef Paul’s Remoulade sauce until covered.

Slice a head of lettuce into 2-inch slices and season liberally with Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, juice from ½ a lemon, and extra virgin olive oil. Essig does this on a wire rack, placed inside of a cookie sheet, which ensures the lettuce slice is well dressed but doesn’t get soggy.

Chill entree plates, then spread ¼ cup of gribiche sauce across each plate and place the seasoned lettuce slices on top of the sauce.

Garnish the seasoned lettuce slice with the tossed shrimp, pickled red onion, salt, and your preferred seasonal garnishes.