I like shrimp now and then. I go to the seafood store and have them steam me a pound. I have tried to flavor them with garlic or tomato sauce, but the shrimp don’t seem to take on the flavor, just the sauce.
How do I correctly make garlic shrimp? (Assume I am a cooking moron)
Hmmm. Buy them raw, not steamed. Shell them yourself, devein them, and roll them around in a mixture of sriracha chili sauce, minced fresh garlic, lime juice, a little honey and salt and pepper. Them grill them quickly on the 'que or under the broiler. Them’s some spicy good garlic shrimp!
Steaming them before hand is your problem. Take them home raw and clean them. To clean, I pull off their little legs, then peel the shell off from the head to the tail, then run a paring knife along the back of the shrimp and rinse out the sand line. Cut lightly unless you want to butterfly it.
Saute in a little butter/olive oil blend with some shallots and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste. You could add a little white wine and serve over linguine. Maybe add a little chopped flat-leaf (AKA Italian) parsley for color.
Be careful not to overcook them - it doesn’t take long to cook shrimp to perfection. You don’t want to brown shrimp the same way you would want to brown beef or chicken or whathaveyou.
ETA: teela, I am so trying that recipe! YUM.
I forgot one important part: serve with icy-cold Asian beer, like Singha.
Here’s a decent recipe from a local restaurant that is excellent in shrimp tacos.
Cava Rock Shrimp
1 pound fresh rock shrimp, peeled
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic granules
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
3 tsp olive oil
Heat the oil in an 8-inch pan until very hot.
Mix the flour, salt, pepper and garlic in a bowl. Add the shrimp and mix.
Place the breaded and strained shrimp in the pan and cook for about 4 to 5 minutes.
Remove from pan and serve on a plate with a slice of lime and salsa.
Alternatively, serve shrimp with grilled flour or corn tortillas as a taco or atop a salad.
I love your recipe, until I got to this part. Serve them with a good beer, none of which are Asian.
Another great way to serve shrimp is to boil them in beer and spices. We always used to do this when we’d come back from Baja. Shrimp, bread, beer. The perfectly balanced meal.
Buttah.
Well, butter or olive oil are key to getting the flavors to quite literally ‘stick’. Something aboiut a grill seems to make it all come together, too.
Yeah–I got a recipe somewhere that involves a pan full of a mix of beer and water (maybe 1/3 beer to 2/3 water), half a lemon squeezed in and then dumped in the mix, a quartered onion, some cayenne, some salt, and some garlic. You boil this mixture together for ten minutes or so, strain out the solids like the lemon and onion, and then boil the shrimp in it. It’s really tasty that way.
Last weekend, I grilled shrimp using a recipe that called for removing the shrimpguts but not removing the shell (you just cut right through the shell). It was a pain in the ass, but the shrimp stayed juicy and delicious.
One last touch: it’s worth the extra cost to buy good shrimp. i don’t know what makes some shrimp so useless, but you can definitely buy shrimp with no flavor whatsoever, just a weird rubbery texture. Go for the good stuff.
Daniel
I steam mine myself with Old Bay and a little cajun seasoning.
To really get them to soak up the flavor, consider marinating them for several hours (refrigerated of course) before grilling. I had some last weekend that had been marinated with rosemary and garlic and the flavor was very strong (almost too strong, but pleasant nonetheless).
You cannot overestimate the importance of not overcooking shrimp. All you do is wait for it to turn pink, flip, turn pink on the other side.
You must not overcook the shrimp. I’m begging you, please, please do not overcook the shrimp.
They get more flavor if you cook them in their shells.
If you’re going to cook them plain then cooking them in the shells is 100% correct and you peel them after cooking. But if you want to season them then the shells act as a sort of…shell…protecting the succulent shrimp meat from the invasive tentacles of the seasoning agents.
Not necessarily. If you’re doing a shrimp boil (or crawfish boil or whatnot), it is customary to leave the shells on. Also, certain traditional preparations of shrimp, like salt & pepper shrimp, you usually leave the shells on when you coat them and season them. You also eat the shrimp, shells and all.
I tried this tonight; went a little heavier on the lime juice and garlic. Grilled them up and enjoyed with a sweet corn cake and salad. Holy cow, that’s some great shrimp!! Bravo Teela!
The recipe I did most recently warned against an overlong marination–it said that marinating shrimp in acid longer than 15 minutes risked changing the texture, and I can’t imagine it’d be a change I’d like.
Daniel
Yes, any marinade containing citrus or vinegar will most definitely change the texture of shrimp from a satisfying, resilient firmness to a strange, mealy mushiness. I know, because I’ve overmarinaded seafood before. I think you could get away with up to a half hour or so. But not more than that and definitely not overnight.
I don’t know for sure what it is called, but my SIL in Chester, PA. goes to the “fish market” (maybe Baltimore? Do they have a fish market?) place and buys seasoning for seafood. I have heard it is a fairly common thing, and probably could be bought anywhere, but it is much like Cajun shrimp without as much spicy hot flavor and a little more garlic-y flavor (IIRC) and we used it in boiling water, with shells on, to get the shrimp to taste best.
I would try anything you could get from the place that steams them for you, then doctor it to your liking. Ask them for seasoning for seafood, then cook it. Try it out on a few shrimp, then add what you think it needs (SIL’s husband adds onion to shrimp every time, regardless of how they are cooked…not my cup of tea, but eh…)
Brendon Small