Thats about it. Do they? If so, how do you do this? I am having a dinner party tonight, shrimp is the appetizer and the only shrimp I could find did not come prepared in any way. I have managed to deshell them, do they need to be deveined? Thanks.
No they don’t, and I’ve eaten lots that haven’t been, but it’s nicer if they are.
The vein is the digestive tract, and basically contains shrimp shit, which is largely grit. It’s not bad for you per se, and it doesn’t taste of anything, but it’s a more pleasant texture if they’re removed.
Deveining can be done by making a slit down the back, using the tip of the knife to free one end, and then using your fingers to pull out the ‘vein’.
They don’t even need to be deshelled.
But, like jjimm says, they’re easier on the tongue (not to mention the eyes) if deveined. I really, really hate the deveining job – it takes forever if you’re cleaning a few pounds – but I always do it.
I bring the shelled shrimp to the coffee table in front of the television, together with a small knife and a couple of paper towels. While watching a recorded episode of ST:TNG, I slit the back of the shrimp, pull out the vein and wipe it on the paper towels. After a little practice, you can do it while barely taking your eyes off the screen. It goes faster that way.
But what if you don’t have any recorded episodes of Star Trek? Or even worse, if you’re not a trekkie?
Would any sci-fi show work in a pinch?
Forrest Gump would work.
Whacking on Finding Nemo with the kids would be particularly sadistic.
Whacking on anything with kids is particularly sadistic. :eek:
I would only bother to devein them if they looked really “dirty”.
If you are having a nice dinner party and serving a shrimp cocktail appetizer they would look nicer deveined. If you are cooking the shrimp in something you could probably leave them alone.
Oh, blecch. You eat shrimp WITH the shells? Please tell me they were at least battered and deep-fried…
You can peel um off AFTER they’ve been berled, if you’re fussy.
Berled in a big arn pot with lots of Old Bay seasoning.
Like peanuts, I routinely cook shrimp in the shell, I just can’t imagine eating the hull.
True dat. I make a shrimp bisque that consists of at least an hour’s preparation, and amidst the onion dicing, garlic mincing, several small stages of cooking, finding where we left the brandy (and maybe taking a sip or two… or six), deshelling and deveining the shrimp takes up the most time. I’d buy 'em already naked and gutted, but the recipe calls for the shells to be cooked with the seafood stock–and later strained out–so I gotta do the tedious work.
I do get to light the brandy on fire, so that makes everything alright. (Only three ounce’s worth, so sometimes I add a wee bit more just to improve the light show.)
Shrimp? We buy them frozen, thaw them, pel them and eat them. Goes very well with beer. If we want to be posh about it, we eat them with white wine, white bread, mayonaisse, a squise of lemon and crunch of pepper. But deveining them? Never heard of it. But are we talking about the same thing? This is what I eat when I eat shrimp. What do you guys eat for shrimp?
Battered, no. Fried, yes. Properly fried the shell gets crispy. There are a couple of dim sum places we go to where you get shrimp fried in the shell with some kind of spices on the outside. You eat them shell & all. Well, I don’t eat the head, but others around me do. I haven’t braved that particular frontier yet.
There’s also a Thai place I go to that serves a dish called Salty Spicy Shrimp, and you’re meant to eat the shell. Yum. (no heads)
Okay, well…I had the same answer others did: so far as I’ve heard, you don’t have to “devein” them (as noted, it’s not a vein, but the intestinal tract), but it’s better if you do.
The question that I had may have been answered, too; but I’m willing to pound people for a clarification: when in Thailand, we often got soup or stirfry dishes with shrimp-in-the-shell. I could never get a straight answer as to whether it was okay to eat them that way (language barrier). Peeling them was very hot, but eating them with the shell on worried me about intestinal abrasions or somesuch.
So…CAN they be eaten shell-on? Is that why they are presented that way sometimes? Or must I wait until they cool and then get my fingers messy by peeling them after they’ve been cooked in a soup or something?
Motorgirl: I’m completely ignoring you, in case you were wondering.
No, not really…I’ve just been up really late and didn’t read your post.
Sorry 'bout that.
I don’t know if non-fried shrimp shells are edible or not. They get really crisp when fried and are easy to chew, but they seem much tougher when they’re in soup or are boiled or steamed, so I don’t know if in that instance the shells are OK to eat or not. Seems like a lot of chewing.
[pointless aside]
My mom always eats the shrimp tails, no matter how prepared (fried, boiled, sushi, etc.). She eats apple cores, too. I call her the human garbage disposal.
[/pa]
It’s more important to me the larger the shrimp are. Larger shrimp usually have more crap in their vein, and if you have larger shrimp, you don’t have to do so many to have a meal. I use a single edged razor blade and go to town. It makes them so much more easy to peel after the back is slit.