The Best Shrimp Recipe Ever

 

Are you ready for this? The best shrimp recipe ever? Yes, you are. Because it is so delicious, and so easy, it will become your new go-to, and you'll make it again. At least I do.

100% credit - maybe 110%, it's that good - goes to my dad for this one (and, admittedly, for many others!). He made it for us when we were home over the summer, and oh my God. I mean, I love shrimp already, but even people (ahem, Joef) who don't go insane for shrimp (really, though? How could you not?) love this recipe.

I made it for the first time on one of the first nights in our new place, accompanied by some truly amazing steak from The Local Butcher Shop (yet another reason to love Berkeley, by the way). Unfortunately, I lost/deleted pictures of that steak (gah!). Fortunately, we made the shrimp again (as if we wouldn't!), so at least we have that going.

The secret is my dad's marinade, and cooking them up nice and quick over the grill. Oh, and leaving the skin on. You can turn it into a big meal (serve with steak and fresh salad for some surf-and-turf), medium (maybe some nice aglio e olio), or relatively light, just the shrimp and, say, a nice arugula salad with fresh cherry tomatoes, baby mozzarella, and a cherry balsamic vinaigrette. Drooling...

           

This might be one of my favorite recipes, period. I mean, I don't want to artificially raise hopes and all that, but I'm pretty confident it won't fail you.

Because it's a marinade, the recipe is rather loose. Here's what my dad said:

Olive oil, garlic, ginger, black pepper, parsley, lemon juice.

You can kind of play with the amounts of the ingredients, and my general guidance would be:

1-2 lbs shrimp, cleaned and deveined, but NOT peeled
Juice from two lemons, and some pulp (take the end of a spoon or tongs and just jam it into the lemon while squeezing)
2-4 cloves garlic, smashed a bit with the side of a knife, then roughly chopped
2-4 twists of the black pepper mill
Small bunch of parsley, chopped
Generous amount of ginger powder (yes, powder) - 5 or so shakes?
A few glugs of olive oil 
Bamboo skewers, soaked in water beforehand

You should have enough liquid to coat the shrimp, and some will pool in the bottom of the bowl as well. You combine all of these ingredients in a bowl, stir them up to coat the shrimp, then pop them in the fridge for about 3 hours. Skewer them, making sure the skewer pierces the shrimp in two places, and that all tails are facing the same direction.

Shrimp cook really fast, so just cook them a couple/few minutes on each side on the grill, so that they get nice and pink. Eat outside with a nice white wine, and it will be a wonderful evening.

Shrimp and Chicken Etouffee

(adapted from www.simplyrecipes.com)


I have no idea if this tastes anything like a true etouffee, but I scarfed it down nonetheless. Maybe it's just because I love shrimp. Love it. But the other thing I loved about this was the flavor of the sweet paprika. And the addition of the tender chicken thighs (to placate my shrimp-neutral husband, tsk!) made it extra-savory and delicious. Plus, etouffee always makes me think of the Broadway Oyster Bar in St. Louis, which catered our wedding. Can't beat that!

I didn't have any Cajun seasoning, as the original recipe called for. A Google search found a recipe for Cajun seasoning that included salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, thyme, sweet basil, and bayleaf. I wasn't about to make five cups of the stuff, so I just sort of sprinkled a selection of those ingredients in at will. Which doesn't make this the most easy or, um, reliable recipe, but hey - season according to taste!

1/4 cup vegetable oil
Heaping 1/4 cup flour
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
1 large celery stalk, sliced thin
4 garlic cloves, chopped
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chopped into small bites
5 cups chicken broth, hot
A combination of cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, seasoned salt, and basil, totaling about 1 tbsp - plus more cayenne
1/2 tsp celery salt
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1/2-3/4 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails removed
Salt to taste
3 green onions, chopped

Start by making a roux (my friend David from Louisiana taught me this a few years back): heat the oil in a heavy pot over medium for 1-2 minutes. Stir in the flour, leaving no clumps. Let this cook, continually stirring, until it browns, 5-10 minutes.

Add the celery, green pepper, jalapeno, and onion, and stir into the roux to coat. Cook this over medium for another four minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Next, add the garlic and and the chicken, and sprinkle with garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne, black pepper, seasoned salt, and dried basil - and cook another 2 minutes.


Slowly add the hot chicken stock, stirring constantly so it incorporates. Add enough stock to make a sauce about the thickness of syrup, about 5 cups. Add more cayenne, along with celery salt and paprika, and mix well. Sprinkle in more of the spices as desired. Add salt to taste, then stir in the shrimp. Cover the pot, turn the heat to its lowest setting, and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered. 

Add the green onions and hot sauce to taste for garnish. Serve over brown rice.

Spaghetti with Shrimp and Spicy Tomato Sauce

I need to think of a cooler-sounding/shorter name for this delicious dish. Any votes? My dad makes something similar, usually on Christmas Eve, except his also has scallops and calamari (drool). And he also used to make "shrimp sauce spaghetti" fairly regularly when I was little, now that I think of it.

Shrimp is (are?) one my favorite things. I'm a total sucker for any menu item that mentions shrimp. Grocery shopping the other day, I was thinking about this, and then I realized that I no longer have to be at the mercy of a restaurant menu. I can just cook with shrimp. Anything I want. Any time. Mountains and mountains of succulent shrimp...or, to be more reasonable, I suppose, a handful or so cooked in a spicy tomato sauce.

The husband has returned (hooray!), and he, while not an insane shrimp enthusiast, loved this dish, too. So it's a crowd-pleaser, to boot.

Here's how:

3/4-1 lb spaghetti (angel hair would be great, too, or linguine fine)
1/4 cup olive oil
5-7 small/medium cloves garlic
Red pepper flakes
Ground cayenne pepper
3 small tomatoes, chopped and lightly salted
1 small can tomato sauce
Splash of white wine
25 or so uncooked shrimp, peeled and with tails removed
Dried or fresh parsley

Combine the olive oil and garlic in a pan over medium heat. Sprinkle in red pepper flakes to taste, and a pinch or two of cayenne. Let the garlic cook for a couple of minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes. Let the tomatoes cook with a garlic for a couple minutes, then stir in the tomato sauce. Start the water boiling for your spaghetti. Bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Partially cover if it seems like the sauce is evaporating. Stir occasionally.

When the water boils, add the spaghetti. About 4-5 minutes before the noodles are done, add a splash of white wine to the sauce and turn the heat back up to medium. About 2-3 minutes before the noodles are done, add the shrimp to the sauce and cook until they pink and plump; sprinkle in a pinch of parsley. Turn off the heat, drain the pasta and add it to the sauce pan.

Mexican Feast, Part 2: Chipotle Shrimp

(from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen)

The second course we served for our Mexican Feast, along with the chips and salsa, was Chipotle Shrimp, which tided us over till I finished making the chicken...erm, a few hours later. I love these shrimp - I've made them a few times before, and they are great - pop-in-your-mouth smoky-spicy.

This is really two recipes in one: first, the Essential Sweet-and-Smoky (ah, there's the adjective combo I was looking for) Chipotle Seasoning Salsa, and then the Chipotle Shrimp, which calls for that seasoning. The seasoning makes a lot of leftovers (it makes 1 1/4 cups, and you only use 2-4 spoonfuls in the shrimp themselves), which can be stored in the fridge and used for other things (added to wine for mussels, added to dips, etc.) - although truth be told, I've never done any of that. Missed opportunity!

Let's start with the Chipotle Seasoning:
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp molasses
Vegetable oil to a depth of 1/4 inch, for frying
4 oz dried chipotle chiles (Bayless prefers the red moritas, but I always use - because I can only find - the brown mecos), stemmed
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 tsp salt

In a medium saucepan, measure 1 1/4 cups of water, add the sugar and molasses, bring to a boil, remove from heat and stir until sugar is dissolved.

Set a skillet with the vegetable oil over medium heat, and when the oil gets hot (before it starts to smoke), add half the chiles. Stir and coat in oil until they start to smell spicy; some will puff up - cook for about 2 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to scoop them out of the oil and drop them into the sweet water and stir. Do the same with the rest of the chiles.

Pour off most of the oil in the pan, leaving a thin layer. Return to medium heat and cook the garlic, stirring until golden - about 4 minutes. Add to the chiles. Pour the chile mixture into a blender (with the water) and puree.

Return the same skillet to medium-high. When it's hot, add all of the chile puree to the pan. Stir, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently. It will be very thick and will blacken and be shiny on top when it's ready. Season with salt if you want. Set aside.

Chipotle Shrimp
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 small white onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 medium tomato
3/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 tbsp olive oil
2-4 tbsp Essential Sweet-and-Smoky Chipotle Seasoning Salsa (see above)
1/2 tsp salt
2 lbs (about 50) medium-large uncooked shrimp, deveined and peeled, but with final joint and tails kept on

Roast the garlic cloves on an ungreased skilled over medium until they blacken in spots. If you have a large enough skillet, you can simultaneously roast the onion by placing it in a square of aluminum foil and putting that on the skillet as well. Let it brown and soften, turning as needed. While this is going on, roast the tomatoes on a baking sheet below a broiler until the skin blackens; flip and allow the opposite side to blacken as well, then remove from the oven and let cool before removing the skin. Let the garlic cool and remove its skin, too.

Combine all of the roasted ingredients in a blender along with the pepper, cloves, and 1/4 cup water. Puree.

Heat the oil over medium-high in a very large skillet. When the skillet is hot enough to make a drop of the puree sizzle, add the puree all at once and stir for several minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low and keep cooking and stirring another 5 minutes or so. Now, stir in your Chipotle Seasoning Sauce a tablespoon at a time until they reach the heat you want (I used 3 heaping tablespoons). Remove from heat; add salt if needed.

Once your shrimp are prepped, return the sauce to medium-high and stir into the sauce until the shrimp are cooked, about 3-4 minutes. The sauce will coat the shrimp. Serve and enjoy!

Pan-fried Shrimp and Chicken Breast

(from Babette de Roziere's Creole cookbook)

You'll need:

Jumbo shrimp, with tails removed (deveined, uncooked, peeled - however many are in a bag at the supermarket)
Chicken (1 pound)
Peanut oil (2 tbsp)
Chervil, chopped (2 sprigs)
Fresh ginger, chopped (2 tsp)
Serrano chiles, cut into thin strips (2)
Red bell pepper, chopped (1)
Green bell pepper, chopped (1)
Balsamic vinegar (2 tbsp)
Fresh lime juice (1 lime)
Salt, black pepper, and sugar (to taste)
Basil leaves (5-6)
Rice (1 cup)

Thinly slice the chicken breast and prep all the ingredients.

Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add the chervil, garlic, ginger, chiles, and peppers and fry over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Then add the balsamic vinegar.

Add the chicken and lime juice right away. Cook for another couple minutes, stirring constantly. Add the shrimp. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook until its all cooked through.

Add a pinch of sugar when you remove it from heat. Garnish with basil leaves, torn up. Serve over rice.