Tag: shrimp

Shrimp and cherry tomato aioli toasts

Shrimp and cherry tomato aioli toasts

It doesn’t take long to put together this shrimp aioli dinner. All you need is shrimp, crusty bread, some garlic mayonnaise (aioli) and a few common spices. We made ours using red Indonesian shrimp because they looked the best that day, but any fresh shrimp will do.

  • 1 lb fresh shrimp
  • 2 cups cherry tomatoes, stems removed
  • 3-4 slices crusty bread
  • Olive oil as needed, probably 4-5 Tb.
  • 3 garlic gloves, thinly sliced.
  • 1 Tb wine vinegar
  • 1 ½ tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • ½ tsp red pepper flakes
  • Chopped parsley

The Aioli

  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 Tb fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
  • 1 large clove of garlic, mashed and minced (or use a garlic press)
  • ½ cup extra virgin olive oil

You can make this in a bowl with a whisk or use a blender. The blender is faster.

Put the egg yolks lemon juice, salt and garlic in the blender, and with the blender running, slowing pour in the olive oil. Let it run another 10-15 seconds and top. You should have a nice mayonnaise. Put it in  bowl in the refrigerator while you prepare the shrimp.

The Shrimp

  1. Place the shrimp on a plate and dry them off. Sprinkle with kosher salt and let rest while you make the toasts.
  2. Put 2 Tb olive oil in a cast iron frying pan, and heat to medium high. Put in 2 slices of toast and brown. Turn the toasts and brown the other side. Drain on a paper towel and repeat with the other slices, and drain.
  1. Add more olive oil and cook the shrimp for 2 minutes on one side, and turn and cooka bout 2 minutes more. Remove the shrimp to a bowl.
  2. Add more olive oil and all of the cherry tomatoes. Cook at medium high until they brown on the bottom, about 4 minutes. Turn them all over and cook another minute or two.
  1. Add the vinegar, sliced garlic, paprika, cumin and ½ tsp red pepper flakes and 2 tsp Diamond Crystal salt. Cook, stirring until some of the tomatoes begin to burst. Add the shrimp and stir until heated through.
  1. Spread the aioli thickly on the toasts and spread the shrimp and tomatoes on top of the aioli.
  2. Decorate with parsley and more pepper flakes and serve at once.
Shrimp with lobster sauce

Shrimp with lobster sauce

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce

This recipe from Joyce Chen doesn’t actually contain any lobster: it’s just that the sauce is the same one that she served with lobster.  She called this an Americanized Chinese dish.

But it is quite simple to make, and you can have it on the table as soon as the rice is ready. This recipe calls for ground pork. Often you can find it in the supermarket, but if not, you can chop up some pork in a food processor or by hand using a large knife. For black beans, ideally you should use fermented Chinese black beans but we used Goya black beans with sea salt as a substitute.

  • 1 lb raw shrimp
  • ½ cup ground pork
  • 2 tsp dry sherry
  • 2 Tb cornstarch
  • 4 Tb cooking oil
  • 2 slices ginger root, minced
  • 1 ½ Tb black beans, minced
  • 2 cloved garlic crushed and minced
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 Tb soy sauce
  • ¼ tsp MSG
  • ¼ tsp sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  1. Rinse and shell the shrimp and remove the intestinal vein. In these pictures, we used Vietnamese red shrimp, which are not yet cooked, but come already peeled and deveind.
  2. Mix the shrimp with the sherry and ½ Tb cornstarch.
  3. Mix the remaining cornstarch into ¼ cup of water.
  4. Heat the oil in a skillet or wok to high heat and add the shrimp. Cook and stir for about 2 minutes and remove from the pan, and keep warm. Keep as much oil as possible.
  1. Reheat the oil and add the ginger root, garlic and black beans.
  1. After stirring for about 30 seconds, add the pork, salt, soy sauce, MSG, sugar and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 2 minutes.
  2. Mix in the shrimp and the stirred cornstarch mixture, after heating, stir in the beaten egg.
  1. Serve immediately over rice.
Beer batter shrimp

Beer batter shrimp

       

You can make these nice, puffy beer-battered shrimp with very little effort. You just need to let the batter sit for 30-45 minutes before you start dipping and frying the shrimp. We found that the best frying temperature for the shrimp was about 350˚ F. They still take only minutes to brown.

If you are using a stand mixer, you might find that it can’t beat a single egg white. We usually put in two so the beaters will catch the whites, and then only use about half of the beaten whites.

  • 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined.
  • ½ cup flour
  • Dash of salt
  • 1 beaten egg
  • 1 Tb melted butter
  • ½ cup beer
  • 1 egg white, beaten
  • About 3-4 cups canola oil
  • Lemon wedges
  • Seafood sauce of your choice

Folding egg whites into batter

Frying the shrimp
  1. Mix the flour and salt and stir in the butter and egg.
  2. Add the beer gradually, stirring only until smooth.
  3. Let the batter stand in a warm place for 30-45 minutes
  4. Preheat the oil to 350˚ F.
  5. Beat the egg white to stiff peaks.
  6. Fold the egg white into the batter.
  7. Dip the shrimp into the batter and drop directly into the hot oil. Cook only 5-6 at a time to keep the oil from cooling.
  8. Serve with French fries, lemon wedges and cocktail sauce.

French fries

Since you have the hot oil, why not make some French fries, too? Cut about 1 or potatoes per person into strips and soak in cold water for an hour, and then drain them.

Turn the oil temperature up to 375˚ F.  Dry the fries, and cook them in a couple of batches. Serve at once.

Shrimp and fries, with corn

Shrimp scampi carbonara

Shrimp scampi carbonara

If you think Shrimp Scampi is great, imagine it served on spaghetti carbonara instead of boring old spaghetti! This is the the perfect meld of two excellent dishes, resulting in shrimp on a rich, creamy spaghetti base. And the whole recipe still takes only half an hour.

For the scampi

  • One pound large (or larger) shrimp, peeled and deveined
  • 2 Tb olive oil
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • ½ tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 lemon, juiced. Save the zest, too.
  • ½ cup dry white wine
  • 5 Tb butter
  • ¼ cup chopped parsley

For the carbonara

  • 2 strips bacon
  • ½ to 1 lb vermicelli
  • 3 eggs
  • ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

  1. Start by frying the 2 strips of bacon from the carbonara recipe. Cook until dry, and drain on a paper towel. Chop the bacon up and reserve in a small dish. Pour the bacon drippings in the bowl as well.
  2. Rinse out the pan, removing any excess “bacon tracks,” dry and add the olive oil.
  3. Saute the shrimp 2-4 minutes, depending on size. They should be pink and firm, but don’t cook until they shrink. Set the shrimp aside.

  1. Add the minced garlic and pepper flakes and a little more olive oil. Saute for a minute or so until fragrant.
  2. Add the lemon juice and wine and cook down for a couple of minutes.
  3. Stir in the butter, a Tb at a time until the sauce is smooth and uniform.
  4. Cook the vermicelli in boiling water until just past al dente. For this recipe, we prefer starting with dried, rather than fresh, pasta, because it will hold more heat for the next step.

  1. Drain the pasta and return to a bowl. Using two forks, mix in the eggs one at a time so they cook in the hot pasta.
  2. Add the parmesan cheese and stir in so it begins to melt.
  3. Mix in some or all of the bacon.
  4. Reheat the shrimp in the sauce, briefly and pour both over the spaghetti.
  5. Sprinkle parsley on top.

There! Done in half an hour or less, and creamily good. Serve ladling the shrimp, sauce and pasta onto each plate.

plated

Buon appetito!