Before I get to this delicious coconut milk shrimp dish, I want to share my misery. I’m one of those people who is terrible about backing up files. Two days ago, my hard drive crashed. Jacob and I spent all of yesterday trying to recover everything new since my last back-up in September, and managed to save my important documents and music. However, about 80% of the photos I have taken since September, including many many food photos, stand a good chance of being completely lost forever. (Agh!!!) And what pains me the most is that this could have been prevented by just taking a few minutes every week or two to back up my data on some external drive.
"If it makes you feel better," said Jacob, "in all my years of working in tech I have never known a photographer or videographer who hasn’t lost of sh*tload of work because of they forgot to back up." So the lesson to you bloggers, writers, and photographers out there: Back up! Firewire drives are a cheap alternative to this anguish of losing months, or even years, of hard hard work. Computers are fickle and can die at any minute, even Macs.
I think my beloved iBook will work again with new hard drive. But the photos are most likely lost forever. For the time being my work has to be done on Jacob’s laptop in the morning before he needs it for work. I know this crash isn’t the end of the world, but for a writer and blogger who does most of her work with a computer (and with deadlines looming) this is a major setback. I will be kicking myself for a long, long time.
But for now, the shrimp.
I made this mere hours before the crash (and fortunately the photos were still on my camera.) I wanted to make a light seafood dish to counteract the heavier braises, stir-fries, and noodle dishes I have been eating lately. And warmer weather inevitably makes one hunger for lighter meals. In this dish there is just enough coconut milk to add fragrance and flavor, without being overwhelming. The sauce is also delicious mixed with rice. Butterflying takes a little extra time, but I think it helps the shrimp absorb more flavor.
While I’d like to make this more often, I should save money from buying shrimp and put it towards the new hard drive. Or for the hot new Macbook Air. Apparently (in my layman’s understanding) the technology in the expensive version means it is much more durable to normal wear than all other laptops before, in effect eliminating the chance for a crash like mine. Now the question is: how much seafood am I willing to forfeit for the dream laptop?
Coconut Milk Shrimp
Adapted from Food & Wine
1 to 2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1 Thai birds-eye chilli, seeded and finely chopped
2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
2 teaspoons sugar
Salt
1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, shelled, deveined, and butterflied
Steamed rice, for serving
1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
Optional garnish: 1/4 cup dry-roasted unsalted peanuts, chopped
Heat peanut oil in a large skillet. Cook shallots over moderate heat until softened, about 1 minute. Stir in the chilli and lime zest, then pour in the coconut milk. Bring liquid to simmer. Add sugar and season generously with salt. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring frequently, until opaque, about 5 minutes. Spoon the shrimp and sauce over steamed rice. Sprinkle with the cilantro and (optional) peanuts and serve.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
peanut oil, coconut milk and shrimp is quite the southeast asian combo. niiicee. thumbs up. x
by the way, I’ve tagged you for Top 10 Pictures.
check out my blog for more details :)
x
diva
Can’t wait to try it– looks delicious!
Having been through a hard drive loss myself, and having lost 6 months of irreplaceable photos, I now upload everything to both shutterfly and kodakgallery. 6 months ago when I was in China I could access both sites, so perhaps you can too.
But your post is a great reminder. . . I need to back up locally tonight!
you could try going to the apple store’s genius bar. when they were trying to help me fix my hard drive and then told me it was lost, I started crying (I thought I’d lost the photos from my cousin’s wedding) and the guy felt so bad that he somehow managed to extract them from the HD. I think they normally charge for this service though…
It takes forever to recover, if you even can.
May I suggest mozy.com? I’ve used it for nearly a year, it’s an online backup — affordable — that can be done on demand on on schedule. I back up every day now — after losing two months of stuff. (I’d been backing up to an external hard drive and when it got full — because the files were repeating themselves not writing over — I didn’t act on it quickly enough. For two months.)