Sometimes when I close my eyes I can still feel the sun shining, the sea breeze drying out the salty water drops from my skin, and that distinct scent of ocean and sunscreen. These are some of my most treasured childhood memories.
My grandfather was a member of a beach club located on the coast, close to the international airport in Maiquetía. This is where I would spend many weekends, long weekends, special occasions and long vacations as a child. My grandfather owned an apartment close to the beach club, so the whole family would travel from the capital city to the beach and stay there enjoying the apartment and entry to the club.
The club, Playa Grande Yachting Club, was gated and safe. I remember my cousin and I would roam around from one end of the club to the other without supervision… or permission. We would enjoy the beach, play in the sand, roller blade through the walkways, buy chucherías from the many little stores inside the club, jumping from the diving board in the adult pool and playing games in the kids pool, watching movies in the open-air theater, riding bikes, collecting seashells, water skiing with our uncle, and so much more.
One of the best parts of the club was the food. They had several different restaurants and small food huts all throughout the club. Our parents would send us off to buy a dozen empanadas from the pool hut to bring back and enjoy together on the beach.
One of the restaurants, La Capitanía, was atop of one of the man-made piers, it had the best views of the marina where all the fancy yachts swayed with the waves. It was a bit higher up than the rest of the club, so it had the best views of the sunset as well. It was surrounded with rocky cliffs that we were told many times not to climb, from where stray cats would meow asking for scraps of food. The eating area was open on the sides but covered from the sun, you could feel the sea breeze as you enjoyed the fresh seafood.
One of my most vivid memories is visiting this restaurant with my family one day. I was a very picky eater as a kid, and seafood always looked weird to me. I didn’t want to try any of it. The waiter had brought an appetizer for the table, like everything else, it looked weird to that picky eater. It also looked very fancy, though. It had some pink moon-shaped pieces, on top of a large green soft bowl of sorts, and it was all served in a very large and tall cocktail glass and drizzled with pink sauce. I asked my mom “¿Qué es eso?”, she said it was cóctel de camarones… then I asked what the green stuff was, and she said it was aguacate… then I asked what camarones are, and I didn’t care for the answer because it was seafood. At least I knew what the pink sauce was, and I already knew I liked it. My mom was insistent that I tried it. I refused several times. My family ate it all before I tried it, but it was so good that they ordered a second one. My mom finally convinced me to try it. It was the most delicious thing that picky eater had ever tried. This was the day avocado became one of my favorite things in the world… and it still is. That’s probably why I remember it so vividly. That day I also learned to try everything, at least once.
Throughout all the years we spend visiting the beach club, I developed a few favorites: cóctel de camarones, limonada frappe con granadina, and torta opera. I have had limonada frappe con granadina, and I was thinking about posting the recipe here, too. I have had Opera cake when I found it in an Italian market in South Florida, but I hadn’t eaten that delicious shrimp avocado cocktail, probably since the last time I had it at the club, many, many, many years ago. It was time. While visiting my sister in Illinois we decided to recreate the recipe from memory with a few twists of our own, and now I want to share this recipe with you. If you are lucky enough to live near the beach, serve it outdoors, enjoying the sea breeze.
What you need:
– 1 large avocado
– ½ bag of frozen shrimp (ready to eat)
– 1 or 2 limes
– Extra virgin olive oil
– 1 cup mayo
– 6 tbsp ketchup
– 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
– ¼ tsp salt
– 1/8 tsp white pepper
Preparation:
1. Start by thawing the shrimp. Follow the instructions on the bag. It will depend on the brand, but it usually involves running the shrimp under cold water until completely thawed. I am not really providing measurements of how much shrimp because it will depend on how many servings you wish to make, and how big your avocados are.
2. Mix the mayo, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. This is what we in Venezuela call “Salsa Rosada”, or pink sauce. You can add a few drops of hot sauce if you want to spice things up a bit, but that’s optional.
3. Open up the avocado in half and remove the pit. It is best to have the largest avocadoes you can find. I didn’t find any large ones, so I had to use Hass avocados, but the larger the better. Scoop out some of the avocado to create the “bowl” where you will serve the shrimp. Do not discard the avocado meat you scoop out. Keep it, since we will mix it in later.
4. Once the shrimp is thawed, you can choose to serve whole or remove the shells and chop them up. For this recipe we chose to remove the shells and chop the shrimp, as well as mix the avocado meat we took out with the chopped shrimp.
5. Add a bit of the pink sauce to the mix. If you choose to leave the shrimp whole, you can put the shrimp inside the avocado halves and drizzle the pink sauce on top. We chose to chop the shrimp, add the avocado and then add the pink sauce into the mixture. If you chose to mix everything up, add some lime as well.
6. Serve with additional pink sauce on the side and a wedge of lime. You can also drizzle a bit of olive oil on top.
¡Buen Provecho!
Venezuelan Cooking 