This is one of those dishes that has been in the family for so long that my mother thinks she made it up. My parents used to entertain a lot, and every year we had a big gathering on Christmas day. (We're Jewish so we called it the Jingle Bells party.) This year, for the first time in many years, my siblings and I all made it back to New Orleans for Christmas, so we reprised the Jingle Bells party, complete with Aunt Julie's meatballs (http://www.food52.com/recipes...), my mother's egg salad sandwiches on white bread, and her shrimp dip. I'm not a fan of the egg salad, but this dip is really great--and of course you can adjust the seasoning to your taste.
How to prepare the shrimp is entirely up to you. We boil our shrimp in Zatarain's Crab boil--it comes in seasoning pouches and in liquid--you can add a tablespoon or two to the water in which you cook the shrimp. —drbabs
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