Geranium & Lemon infused Shrimps

The word « geranium » probably makes most people think of a beautiful innocent looking flower. But in my family, geranium is also a kitchen staple. Indeed, the leafy parts of the geranium flower is probably one of the most fabulously fragrantly favourite plants I know of. In cooking, dried geranium leaves can do wonders and I particularly enjoy adding them to fish and seafood. It has a kind of flowery, lemony, very very refreshing taste. Try rubbing some dried geranium leaves between your fingers over a grilled or poached salmon filet and wow your tastebuds away…I ensure you, it is so worth a try. I also use them boiled in water as an infusion, similarly to how people consume chamomile as a soothing hot beverage. I probably wouldn’t be surprised if there are hundreds of delicious ways to use geranium leaves… (below: what dried geranium leaves look like)

So I thought I would share a dish I experimented around with, including a bit of geranium magic with shrimps over a bed of spinach tagliatelle and a drizzle of a zesty lemon cream. It’s easy to make, full of taste and probably a good choice if you want to impress a special someone!

Recipe for geranium & lemon infused shrimps:

Ingredients (for 2 people):

• 10 Shrimps, big juicy and tasty
• ½-1 teaspoon dried geranium leaves (depends on how flavourful you want it to be)
• Juice of 1 small lemon
• Olive oil
  

How to make it:
In a bowl, marinate the shrimps into the lemon juice and dried geranium leaves and some olive oil. Allow to rest for a few hours, not too too long though. Bring a pan over heat, add a drizzle of olive oil and then place the shrimps, cook as you would usually cook shrimps. Make sure to cover pan with lid at one point while lowering heat so it can suck in all the flavour from the lemon-geranium mix. Recommended to serve with tagliatelle (boiled, and then cooked with spinach mixed in- it’s not spinach tagliatelle, it’s actually cooking spinach leaves with the tagliatelle), and serve with some heated cream (whisk it super well right before serving, so that it has that foamy type texture) and some miniature diced lemon peels.

P.S: the orange-brick coloured line on the plate is created by dipping a sponge into powdered saffron mixed with a dot of water, and then using the sponge to “paint” over the plate.

*First illustration image is retrieved from Wikipedia/search for "geranium"