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I have some shrimp, jamacian jerk seasoning and some linguini. I also have various sauces, but I dont know if jerk’d shrimp would be good with a red sauce.

Anywho, looking for suggestions on how I could prepare something like this. Sauces mainly.
Jerk flavors go well with cream-based sauces, although I think a puttanesca might be an interesting accompaniment. I would suggest something simple like a B?chamel to start out with. B?chamel is one of the French "mother sauces," meaning it is the base for many other sauces. It’s very simple and pretty hard to screw up. My favorite way to make it is as follows. Keep in mind that I don’t do measurements, I play it by ear, so you might want to look up some exact measurements if you’re a little nervous.

You’ll need around a half cup of white flour and a stick of butter. You’re going to make a white roux (just a fancy word for a mixture of fat and flour used for thickening) by melting the butter over medium heat and combining the flour with a whisk. Once everything is together and the lumps are out, take the pan off the heat for a moment. You should have a sauce pan with a few cups of whole milk being heated to scalding. Be careful when doing this, because the line between scalded milk and boiled-over milk with a free kitchen redecoration included is very thin and easy to cross.

Make sure that your roux does not pass the white stage. Blond roux wouldn’t be terrible for this, but you would NOT want anything darker than that for this sauce.

Very slowly ladle or pour in the milk while whisking vigorously. You’re aiming for a consistency that is a little thicker than heavy cream at this point. Basically, you want to shoot for something a little thinner than what you want your final product to be, since it will thicken up shortly. Keep pouring until you’ve reached that point, then turn the heat to medium-high or high just until it has been boiling for about a minute or so. Cut it back to low/medium low heat and continue to stir for a few minutes. The reason you boiled it for a little while is that the roux will not be able to thicken properly until the mixture is brought to a boil. Normally this would also "cook out" the taste of the raw flour, but since you made a roux that was cooked beforehand that won’t be an issue.

At this point you can add your flavorings. A few pinches of kosher or sea salt, a LOT of fresh cracked black pepper, and a pinch of fresh ground Nutmeg are the basic trio with a B?chamel. If you want something with cheese, make a Mornay sauce by slowly adding shredded or grated cheese to the mixture until you’ve reached a good consistency and flavor. Note that if you do this you might want to make the original sauce a little thinner since the cheese will thicken it up quite a bit. Gruyere or swiss are best for this, along with some Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano.

Toss with the al dente pasta and other ingredients just enough to coat it well without leaving a pool in the bottom of the serving dish and you have successfully produced a classic French sauce.

Mike

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