Safely holding & Re-heating cooked fresh Shrimp ABT'S at another location.


 
B

Bill C (Yankee Bill)

New member
Hi folks,

I'm going to be making some fresh Shrimp / crème cheese stuffed ABT's on the Performer to take to a relatives house for some Thanksgiving Day Appetizers. The Jalapeno halves will be each stuffed first with a whole peeled fresh shrimp, then topped with crème cheese mixture, sprinkled with rub, then wrapped in bacon and cooked indirect @ 325 for 40 - 60 mins..

I need to cook them at my house and re-heat them there.
I've done this in the past using cooked & crumbled breakfast Sausage mixed into the cheese mixture, instead of shrimp, and didn't have any issues with holding them couple of hrs. @ room temp and reheating them.

I will finish cooking these 1- 2 hrs. before they will need to be reheated. My concerns with using the shrimp are:

1. If it will be safe to let cooked ABT's sit @ room temp for 1-2 hrs. before reheating. (Should I cook them earlier and cool them before reheating?)

2. I'm wondering if the shrimp might become "rubbery" when reheated? But I doubt it as they will be well covered with crème cheese mix & bacon.

Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you may have to offer.

Thanks,

YB
 
Okay, I'll bite. What's "ABT"? American Ballet Theatre? Stock symbol for Abbott Labs? Always Burnin' Treez?

As to the shrimp, my first thought was that 60 minutes @ 325F is a long time to cook shrimp. To then reheat it? I don't know. I never cook shrimp because the first time I did my hands swelled up from cleaning them. Haven't messed with them since.
 
No! Don’t travel down this road! First, the shrimp might as well be inner tube pieces after that length of heat. Second the bacteria growth will be astronomical, someone’s going to be sick.
Think about what you did....
The sausage was COOKED, and ITS NOT SHELLFISH.
Shrimp are delicate so an hour of cooking time will ruin them in the first place. Just re think this.
 
Sorry but you are incorrect on the bacterial growth issue. There is nothing that shrimp (or any other seafood) harbors that would not be taken care of with proper cooking. Neither is sitting at room temp for 1-2 hours an issue. What is an issue is, as you and Jay both point out, is both the hour of cooking time (a long time) and then the reheat (longer still). Whole shrimp can't really take that. An idea (if you really want to stick with the shrimp idea) is to cook the shrimp first till just done, cool, then mince finely by hand or in a food processor. Take the mince and fold it into the cream cheese. The tiny fibers of minced shrimp behave differently than those of whole or large chunks of shrimp and there won't be rubbery issues.
 
Appreciate the replies guys,

I know that 40 - 60min. for @ 325 for shrimp sounds like a long time but for those folks not familiar with ABT's, the raw shrimp are encased in a half of a Jalapeno, then soft creme cheese is loaded on top covering up the shrimp, then it is all wrapped in a piece of raw bacon and cooked indirect until bacon gets crisp. I don't think cooking these for maybe 40 min. indirect will make them too tough with the way they are entombed in the Japs, but I would monitor them closely. I've seen recipes with similar times and temps for these. If they were just wrapped in bacon I'd be more concerned with over cooking them though.

Kevin,

Thanks for clarifying the safety issue for me, it's reassuring to hear from someone who has experience with this. Also, thanks for the suggestion of mincing the shrimp as well, that sounds like a really good idea. I wouldn't have been at all concerned if I could have served them straight off the grill without having to holding them.

I'm also considering just using cooked Crab meat in place of the shrimp. That might work out better all the way around. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks again for the input.


YB
 
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Bill C (Yankee Bill) said:
I know that 40 - 60min. for @ 325 for shrimp sounds like a long time but for those folks not familiar with ABT's, the raw shrimp are encased in a half of a Jalapeno, then soft creme cheese is loaded on top covering up the shrimp, then it is all wrapped in a piece of raw bacon and cooked indirect until bacon gets crisp.
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Shrimp and crispy bacon... I could be wrong, there may be some culinary magic going on here, but I have a lot of trouble imagining those two things going together. By the time the bacon is crisp the shrimp almost has to be, as Timothy put it, like pieces of inner tube. To be honest, with half a jalapeno, cream cheese, and wrapped in bacon, I'd think you could put catfish in there and no one would know the difference. Out of curiosity, is this a recipe you found somewhere or are you wandering off the reservation on your own with the shrimp?

Bob Correll said:
First "A" on the list here:
https://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?19999-Barbecuing-Grilling-and-Weber-Glossary
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Atomic Buffalo Turd. Yeah, that was gonna be my next guess.
 
Bill C (Yankee Bill) said:
.

I'm also considering just using cooked Crab meat in place of the shrimp. That might work out better all the way around. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks again for the input.


YB
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My pleasure.

Crab is a good idea. I would consider mixing it with the cheese though. You can gently fold them together, stuff, wrap with bacon. Crab is more forgiving when reheating, especially when surrounded by some fat.
 
JayHeyl said:
Shrimp and crispy bacon... I could be wrong, there may be some culinary magic going on here, but have a lot of trouble imagining those two things going together. By the time the bacon is crisp the shrimp almost has to be, as Timothy put it, like pieces of inner tube. To be honest, with half a jalapeno, cream cheese, and wrapped in bacon, I'd think you could put catfish in there and no one would know the difference. Out of curiosity, is this a recipe you found somewhere or are you wandering off the reservation on your own with the shrimp?


Atomic Buffalo Turd. Yeah, that was gonna be my next guess.
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Hi Jay,

The bacon and Shrimp combo is quite good indeed, and certainly nothing new. Grilled shrimp wrapped in bacon is actually quite a common recipe. Shrimp are also very good similarly wrapped in Prosciutto (Italian Ham) and grilled.

Yes, there are lots of recipes for ABT's stuffed with shrimp, and other seafood as well. You would get more results searching using the term "stuffed Jalapeno's" though, as opposed to ABT's, if you were to search for recipes.
 
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K Kruger said:
My pleasure.

Crab is a good idea. I would consider mixing it with the cheese though. You can gently fold them together, stuff, wrap with bacon. Crab is more forgiving when reheating, especially when surrounded by some fat.
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Yes that's what I was thinking as well Kevin, I would fold it in with the cheese, same as when making them with cook sausage. I'm on the coast here in the Virginia Beach area and have access to some pretty good local Blue crab meat, however, I'm thinking I might use some nice Snow Crab leg meat for these instead. I think the chopped Snow Crab leg meat would hold up quite nicely, and is certainly tasty.
 
I’m not convinced that whole shrimp, cooked and reheated in anyway is going to be safe enough for me. Sorry, I’ve seen food poisoning, in differing situations. So, this just sounds like a very very bad idea. Besides rubber shrimp are pretty awful all by themselves.
Your purée of cheese and shrimp will certainly put the textural issue aside and then the proteins in the shrimp will be fully cooked, and that might be safe, the temperature control is still an issue, remember “under 40 over 140” are the “accepted safe zones”
And Kevin,
Those are not my guidelines, they are the food safety guidelines from FDA, National Restaurant Association, and good sense.
 
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I'm intending to smoke our turkey this year so it looks like another item just got added to the menu. I've found a variety of ABT recipes online. Taking them collectively, it appears you can cook at almost any temperature between 225F and 400F, using crispy browned bacon as the guide for when they're done. I'd rather they not take 3 hours on the smoker so I'm figuring on doing them at 325F, just like the turkey. As this will be my first attempt at ABTs I think I'll stick with the more conventional "smokies" for the meat filling. Any tips on what to look out for with these?
 
JayHeyl said:
I'm intending to smoke our turkey this year so it looks like another item just got added to the menu. I've found a variety of ABT recipes online. Taking them collectively, it appears you can cook at almost any temperature between 225F and 400F, using crispy browned bacon as the guide for when they're done. I'd rather they not take 3 hours on the smoker so I'm figuring on doing them at 325F, just like the turkey. As this will be my first attempt at ABTs I think I'll stick with the more conventional "smokies" for the meat filling. Any tips on what to look out for with these?
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Glad you looked into them Jay, they really are great, and the varieties are only limited by one's imagination. Smokies are a great choice for your Maiden ABT Voyage, they're tasty and very forgiving.

I typically do my usual variety with: crumbled breakfast sausage, grated sharp cheddar, a little honey, some rub,garlic powder, and dehydrated onions flakes all mixed into the Creme cheese at 325 degrees indirect, and they usually take an average of 45 min. or so until bacon is crisp and Japs are cooked.

One suggestion I would make, if you haven't already read it somewhere, would be to buy the cheapest, thinnest Bacon you can find if wrapping them. Using thicker bacon can result in peppers / filling being overcooked and bacon being under cooked.

Good luck with your new found appetizers!

YB
 
Partially cook the bacon prior to completing the cooking for the shrimp.
Heard about that one from a retired New York City fish monger, I’d,still use thinner bacon that what I like for a BLT though, good point.
 
Bill C (Yankee Bill) said:
Glad you looked into them Jay, they really are great, and the varieties are only limited by one's imagination. Smokies are a great choice for your Maiden ABT Voyage, they're tasty and very forgiving....
One suggestion I would make, if you haven't already read it somewhere, would be to buy the cheapest, thinnest Bacon you can find if wrapping them. Using thicker bacon can result in peppers / filling being overcooked and bacon being under cooked.
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Made ten jalapeno and about 15 with green and yellow bell pepper. I think this was the first time where I made something that seemed largely "no rules" right from the start. It was clear from reading many recipes online that pretty much any pepper, topped with cheese, topped with some meat, wrapped in bacon, and smoked at some temperature between 225F and 400F would likely work out fine. I mixed cream cheese with medium cheddar, tossed in about a tablespoon of some leftover rub from something or other, sprinkled a bit more ground chipotle over the top, and went medieval on it with a sturdy fork. Filled the pepper boats with the cheese mix, planted a smokie (and sometimes a half) on top, then wrapped in bacon. Smoked them for somewhere around two hours at 325F+/-50F, until the bacon looked done. I had to leave a few on a bit longer but most of them looked finished about the same time.

I thought they were great. The turkey went on when the ABTs came off. Guests didn't arrive for another 3-1/2 hours. I left the ABTs covered for a while and then put them in a very low oven. (Never realized the oven has a setting for 140F. Didn't check if it actually maintained that.) When the rest of the family arrived the 20 or so ABTs that were left disappeared in very short order. Nobody had tried them before but they all loved them. The only real problem was that by the time they were ready to eat it was rather hard to tell the jalapenos from the green peppers. Well, that and I think we had considerably more leftovers because everyone had filled up on ABTs.

On the bacon, I've been buying the Kirkland garden variety stuff at Costco. Never really paid that much attention to it before. Turned out this package had slices of many different thicknesses. There were a few that were almost a thick cut and several I could darn near read through. The differences were obvious when trying to wrap them around stuffed pepper slices.
 
JayHeyl said:
Made ten jalapeno and about 15 with green and yellow bell pepper. I think this was the first time where I made something that seemed largely "no rules" right from the start. It was clear from reading many recipes online that pretty much any pepper, topped with cheese, topped with some meat, wrapped in bacon, and smoked at some temperature between 225F and 400F would likely work out fine. I mixed cream cheese with medium cheddar, tossed in about a tablespoon of some leftover rub from something or other, sprinkled a bit more ground chipotle over the top, and went medieval on it with a sturdy fork. Filled the pepper boats with the cheese mix, planted a smokie (and sometimes a half) on top, then wrapped in bacon. Smoked them for somewhere around two hours at 325F+/-50F, until the bacon looked done. I had to leave a few on a bit longer but most of them looked finished about the same time.

I thought they were great. The turkey went on when the ABTs came off. Guests didn't arrive for another 3-1/2 hours. I left the ABTs covered for a while and then put them in a very low oven. (Never realized the oven has a setting for 140F. Didn't check if it actually maintained that.) When the rest of the family arrived the 20 or so ABTs that were left disappeared in very short order. Nobody had tried them before but they all loved them. The only real problem was that by the time they were ready to eat it was rather hard to tell the jalapenos from the green peppers. Well, that and I think we had considerably more leftovers because everyone had filled up on ABTs.

On the bacon, I've been buying the Kirkland garden variety stuff at Costco. Never really paid that much attention to it before. Turned out this package had slices of many different thicknesses. There were a few that were almost a thick cut and several I could darn near read through. The differences were obvious when trying to wrap them around stuffed pepper slices.
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Sounds like you did quite well with your first run of ABT's, Congrats!. As with many things relating to Q'ing and Grilling, much of it is simply a matter of trial & error, and adapting cooking times and recipes, etc., to our own personal equipment and preferences. But that's half the fun of it.

I ended up going with the Crab yesterday instead of the shrimp, and they came out great. I'll save the shrimp idea for when I can serve them straight off the grill without having to hold them. For the Crab ABT's, I stuffed them with Cream Cheese that I mixed some Lump Crab, grated Gouda cheese into, along with some sauted Shallots, Lemon zest, Old Bay Seasoning, and a drizzle of Honey to counter - balance the saltiness of the Gouda (it was pretty salty). I also made some with the Sausage filling I mentioned earlier and they were great as well.

Yeah, the Bacon can be tricky for sure. I bought four 12 oz. packages of a local el-cheapo brand that is usually sliced pretty thin, for the most part. However for some reason one package was sliced very thick, but wasn't labeled as thick cut. If I get some of those thick pieces mixed in I'll sometimes partially precook them in the oven til they're about 1/3 done, so they'll finish cooking on the grill the about the same time as the thinner pieces do. Wrapping the peppers with the partially precooked pieces of Bacon can be a challenge unless you skewer them in place w/ tooth picks, which I usually try not to use.
 
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