New Orleans Style Barbecue Shrimp

1/2 pound butter

1/2 cup oil

1 cup finely diced yellow onions

1/2 cup finely chopped green onions

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

1/4 cup finely chopped bell peppers

2 heads garlic ( cut in half crosswise )

1 tablespoon whole cloves

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons black pepper

1 tablespoon McCormick's barbecue spice, or your favorite

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon rosemary leaves

2 sliced lemons

2 bay leaves

1 can of warm beer

salt to taste

4 pounds of Jumbo shrimp (shell on but headless)

First, drop the butter and the oil into a 6 quart Dutch oven and melt them together over medium high heat ( just make sure the mixture doesn't burn ). Then toss in the onions, green onions, celery, bell peppers, and garlic and gently sauté them for about 5 minutes until they soften and release their juices. Now add the remainder of the seasonings and spices and stir everything into the vegetable oil-butter base really well, and cook for another 6 minutes until all of the flavors "marry." This is also when you salt the sauce to your taste, but I recommend you over season slightly because the shrimp will absorb a lot of it.

At this point, take the sauce off the burner and allow it to cool slightly. Then add the beer and stir it into the mix until the foam disappears.

Now put the pot back onto the fire over high heat. And when it come back to a boil, drop in the shrimp and stir them thoroughly into the sauce. You want to cook them for about 5 minutes or until they've all turned pink. Then cover the Dutch oven, remove it from the burner, and set it aside to "cure". But about ever 5 minutes or so, stir the mixture so that the shrimp soak up the sauce. This is an important step - it's what makes all the shrimp cook evenly.

Then, when you see a slight air space appear along the back of the shrimp (actually, the shell pulls away from the meat) .. they're ready to eat !! Of course, you can let them soak in the sauce longer, but very few folds I know do! They smell too good!!

Get some nice French or Italian bread to sop up the juices!!