Been doing more grilling - want to try my hand at shrimp - whats the best spices/marinade, etc to make something tasty?
hints, tips, etc -
I saw this one on PBS’ BBQ University this weekend that looked really fantastic:
I have prepared rubs for shrimp, but anymore I just buy a pre-packaged cajun seasoning (Cee Cee’s, don’t know how widely available it is). Kabob and spritz the shrimp with olive oil spray, sprinkle with seasoning, grill.
I’m sure you won’t make the same dumb mistake I did years ago…I wanted to grill shrimp, but they always tasted nasty and dry. Because I was using pre-cooked, frozen shrimp. :smack: Can’t believe I just admitted that.
What else but Old Bay!
See - thats what I keep thinking I want to do - simple rub/spices - nothing complicated - but when I try simple on fish, it comes out bland.
But thats a way to start - and yeah, won’t use the pre-cooked! 
Thanks lukeinva - the old bay site had a recipe I think we’ll be starting with !
This is a marinade for Korean chicken tacos, but I’ve used it for shrimp. You can use other chili paste like Sembal Olek. I usually heat it to dissolve the sugar before marinating.
1/4 cup Korean red pepper paste (gochujang, available in Korean markets)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
I like to use a can or two of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Remove the peppers and use the sauce mixed with some lime juice and olive oil for the marinade. Then when its time to cook put the peppers on the skewers with the shrimp.
Lot’s of great recipes here. I’ve used Old Bay, wasabi, steak sauce, butter, and once on a whim I marinaded the shrimp in Lemon-Lime soda overnight. They came out great. Huge shrimp can overcook on the outside before the inside is done, so butterfly them wide open, or pick something smaller like a 21-25 count ( I think 21-30 is a more common count per pound).
One of the main things about seafood is its terrible if its undercooked or overcooked. Now people vary as to what they consider that point to be…but for them it typically can’t be much from that point either way for it to not be nearly as good as it could be.
You need to really calibrate your cooking. Pick a grill setting. Pick a standard size of shrimp. Pick a fixed number of minutes on each side. Is the cover on or the cover off? Has the grill been on long enough to reach equilibrium? Is it a hot day or cold and windy day? Are the shrimp still refrigrirator cold or have they reached outdoor temps? Don’t even try fancy recipes to start. Just work with very small batchs of individual shrimp. Or even shrimp one a time. Take one afternoon/evening and a bunch of shrimp and figure out what combination of time/temp/size/whatever works for you. When you get THAT figured out so that bare shrimp tastes pretty good THEN you can take that data and apply it to shrimp with rubs or sauces (keep in mind the application of those might slightly increase required cooking times).
Does that make sense?
I make a jerk marinade in a blender that uses green onions, chopped ginger, allspice, cinnamon, soy sauce, lime juice, orange juice, chopped garlic, and habanero pepper.
Marinade for about 15-20 minutes, then skewer and grill for a few minutes per side.
Be very careful using old bay near an open flame. I don’t know which of the component spices did me in, but something burned, and I breathed it, and I’d take pepper spray over that any day.
This one:
Whole Langostino style swrimp, BBQ/Grilled over natural wood charcoal about two inces from the heat … fast and intense with a typical Greek Lamb marinade and baste… EVOO, lotsa Garlic and lemon, and a touch of greek oregano.
Brine the shrimp before you grill them, but don’t grill brine shrimp*.
CMC fnord!
*Unless you’ve got a really, really, tiny grill. 
Yep. Shrimp (and seafood in general) cooks fast. It’s going to depend on your fire, and the size of your shrimp, but in my experience, we’re talking about two minutes a side, three max, if it’s directly on the grill over coals. Just watch the shrimp closely and don’t let them overcook.
Just lime juice.
lime juice and red pepper flakes
Lime juice and garlic marinade, when you put the shrimp on the grill dump the remaining marinade into some melted butter and brush on the shrimp.
Yep. And that short time makes it even more critical to time things just right. An extra (or less) 30 seconds to a couple minutes when cooking a steak (unless going for the perfect rare steak) or chicken or ribs which take many minutes to cook isnt nearly as critical. First, because being slightly over or under cooked with those isnt nearly as important to taste. Secondly, 30 seconds out of 2 minutes is much larger percentage error than 30 seconds out of 10 minutes.
sigh My husband used to make great shrimp on the grill… before we narrowed down that weird itchy-eye, breathing-problem thing he got after every party to the shrimp.
Anyway, we always tossed it in with our marinating chicken. We also do a bag of frozen chicken breasts at our grill-outs, and just toss a bottle of Kroger-brand marinade (we’ve done pretty much every flavor) in the bag while we leave it in the sink to thaw. That gives it a good four-ish hours of marinating. Just toss the shrimp right in the same bag, then skewer them with a pair of skewers (to keep them flat and easy to turn), and grill 'em up with burgers, hot dogs, and whatever else. They always go fast at our parties!