I am not even kidding, y'all. The hankering I had earlier today for Louisiana barbecue shrimp was off the charts. Luckily I was in the market when this desire struck, so I hurriedly picked up a pound of fresh shrimp and a crusty baguette for sauce-sopping.

You should always sop good sauce. Do you do that?

Perhaps you're aware that barbecue shrimp has approximately zero to do with barbecue sauce as you know it. It is, instead, a shrimp-shell stock infused with onion, garlic, bay leaves, Worcestershire, a bit of wine, pepper, salt, and Creole seasoning, reduced to a sauce and mixed with cream and a pat of butter for good measure.

At some point along the way, you quickly cook the shrimp in that ambrosial mess and then serve both in a bowl with a generous hunk of oven-toasted bread.

Note: we did not have enough Worcestershire, so the color of the sauce isn't as richly tinted as usual, but we added some anchovy paste (because umami and also Worcestershire has a fair amount of anchovy in it), and while the depth of flavor wasn't quite as intense as I like, this was still pretty darn good.