This is a fast, delicious étouffée recipe that is easy to adapt to your own taste. Feel free to crank up the heat to your liking, but I find it best to be subtle with the hot sauce and have a bottle on the table for diners who like it spicy.

My father learned this recipe from a chef on an oil rig off the Louisiana coast, and I've refined it over the years. It's an amazing go-to recipe when you have frozen shrimp in the freezer and want something fast. It's elegant enough to serve to company, and it always gets raves at a dinner party. (Just don't tell them that one of the secret ingredients is a can of Campbell's Golden Mushroom Soup.) Double or triple the recipe for a crowd. Serve with a medium-bodied red wine or good beer, and make sure you have plenty of crusty bread for sopping up the gravy. Goes well with music by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Clifton Chenier, Sidney Bechet or Louis Armstrong.