Shrimp is a very valuable food. These sea crustaceans are a storehouse of protein and vitamins, as well as a variety of minerals, including iodine. Shrimp is common in all oceans and has 250 genera and as many as two thousand species. They are both tiny - with a thimble, and giant, the size of a male brush. King and tiger prawns are especially appreciated in cooking. They live in tropical latitudes. In the Black and Azov Seas, you can catch small shrimp. But if you know how to cook them correctly, then they are very tasty. However, it should be remembered that shrimp, like mushrooms, absorb all harmful substances from the environment. So, when buying crustaceans, you should ask in which pond they were caught, so that instead of valuable iodine they would not saturate their body with mercury and lead. But in this article we will not talk about the benefits and dangers of this food product, but consider a variety of recipes: boil shrimps, grill, bake on the grill ... Read and use to enjoy delicious seafood dishes.
What you need to know when choosing shrimp?
If you are in Thailand or a similar country, and went to the night market to buy evening catch seafood, do not bother. Take any shrimp that looks at you. All of them will be the freshest and not at all small. In brown shrimp, the taste is very dependent on the habitat. Tiger (it is easy to recognize by black stripes on a gray carapace) has tender and soft meat. The most expensive delicacy is the white shrimp that lives off the coast of Mexico. It has a crispy meat structure and a slightly sweet, refined taste. Well, if you go to the nearest supermarket for seafood, you need to know a few rules for choosing shrimp. The recipe for success is simple. If we take a packaged product, we examine the package. In addition to valuable inscriptions, we pay attention to whether the crustaceans are the same size. Small shrimp are cheaper than large, and sometimes unscrupulous producers mix them. There should be a minimum amount of ice in the bag - why pay for frozen water? You can also buy weighted shrimp. In this case, their body should be covered by a thin and transparent layer of ice. Blackened crustacean heads indicate that the product is not very fresh. But greens in shrimp is a sign that crustaceans fed on plankton. Pay attention to the color of the shell. The more intense, redder it is, the tastier the finished product will be. The crustaceans should have a tightened tail. Well, now let's move on to the recipes for their culinary processing.
Boiled shrimp
This is not even a finished dish, but rather a semi-finished product. Many recipes for salads, canapes and appetizers include boiled shrimp in the list of ingredients. The recipe for their preparation is extremely simple, but not without its nuances. Since shrimp meat contains a lot of protein, it needs to be cooked on the principle of an egg. The longer it stays in boiling water, the harder it becomes. Hard-boiled shrimps are not tasty at all, but hard, like rubber. The crustaceans fall asleep - both fresh and frozen - always in boiling water. After the liquid again reaches a temperature of one hundred degrees, you need to cook another two to three minutes, no more, large crustaceans and a minute - small ones. And how to make very, very tasty shrimp? The recipe is as follows. Boil two and a half liters of water. Add three tablespoons of salt and two tablespoons of sugar. Also throw in a pan a few twigs of fresh dill, a couple of bay leaves, spices (caraway seeds, black pepper). Squeeze the juice of one small lemon into the broth. Frozen shrimp should be washed in a colander under running water. So they thaw slightly and be cleaned of dirt and excess ice. Throw the shrimp into boiling water. After she gurgles again, we cook crustaceans according to their size from one minute to three. Turning off the fire under the pan, leave it under the lid for ten minutes. So the shrimp is boiled down with residual heat and soaked in liquid, reaching maximum juiciness. We catch them with a slotted spoon and serve on a dish with slices of lemon.
How to cook boiled shrimp?
As a rule, crustaceans are immediately shock-frozen immediately after catching. So they retain all the valuable substances and vitamins. But the food industry, for the sake of the consumer, who often prefers convenience foods, also boils shrimp, and then freezes them. For the laziest, there are already cleaned crustaceans. How to cook such a product? The recipe for delicious boiled frozen shrimp is as follows. We put a pan without water on the fire. We warm it up for a minute. Pour shrimp from the bag into it. Mix. Crustaceans should let water. As soon as the liquid is released, squeeze the juice of a lemon. Bring this water to a boil, cook for a minute. Turn off the fire, lower the lid and wait five minutes until the crustaceans are heated by the heat of the broth. Then we clear them of shells and heads. This is an express recipe. Shrimps prepared in this way can be enjoyed in five minutes. But if you have the time, just move the pack from the freezer to the refrigerator. And then pour the shrimp into a colander, rinse under running water to wash off the remnants of ice, and move the bowl to hot water to warm the seafood.
How easy is shrimp to clean?
Many cooks face this problem. After all, no matter what recipes we make for shrimp, we still need to clean them from inedible paws, shell, heads. You can do the preliminary preparation of crustaceans before the heat treatment. But things will go much easier if we first boil the shrimp, and then quickly we recycle them and dip them in ice water. Such a “contrast shower” leads to the formation of an air gap between the meat and the shell. The protein shrinks a little, and it becomes much easier to clean the edible parts of the crustacean. Chilled shrimp can then be used as an ingredient in salads and other dishes. You can fry them or make seafood skewers. And if we want to feast on boiled tender shrimps, we lower the same colander for a while in boiling water and warm the product. It will be easier to clean the crustaceans if we boil them “in our own juice” in the microwave. Pour quite a bit of water into a suitable container with shrimp and set at full capacity for two minutes.
Fried Shrimp: Recipe
This is a great gourmet appetizer. If you bought unprocessed shrimp, you should first boil them a little. We put a pot of water on the fire (2.5 liters of liquid per kilogram of crustaceans). Salt, add bay pepper and other spices to taste. Bring to a boil. Squeeze the juice from one lemon. Pour shrimp in boiling water. Stir. After boiling again, cook one or two minutes. Strain in a colander and douse in very cold water. After this procedure, the shell and paws with the intestines of the crustacean can be separated very easily. When all the shrimp are cleaned, go to the next step.
There are several ways to fry seafood. The easiest way is to pour the crustaceans into a frying pan in warmed olive oil and stir for three minutes until the meat acquires a golden hue. Shrimps with garlic are very tasty. The recipe suggests dipping a few peeled, but whole cloves in vegetable oil. Then, when they give up their aroma, catch them and add shrimp. You can do otherwise. Chop finely three garlic cloves. First, pour shrimp into the warmed vegetable oil. After three minutes of stirring, add garlic, two tablespoons of soy sauce and juice from half a lemon. So fry another minute. Serve the prawns hot, sprinkling them with chopped fresh dill.
Barbecue
Anyone who has been to Southeast Asia must have tasted this delicious dish. How to cook grilled shrimp? The classic recipe prescribes pre-marinating seafood, that is, to do with them, as with any meat for barbecue. To do this, mix 80 milliliters of olive oil, half a glass of lemon or lime juice, three tablespoons of table white wine, a handful of finely chopped green onion, garlic clove, a pinch of salt and a drop of Tabasco sauce. In this marinade, drop a kilogram of large shrimp (without heads, but with a shell) and leave it cool for the night. Then pull out and let drain in a colander. Fry over coals, strung on thin skewers, or on a grill. They should be baked in low heat for no longer than ten minutes. Do not forget to often turn over the shrimp and pour the marinade from time to time. This dish is served as a side dish with some fresh vegetable salad.
Shrimps in batter
Fried shrimp can turn out to be slightly dry, because all the liquid evaporates in the pan from them. To prevent this from happening, let’s stash each crustacean in a shell of delicious crispy dough. For this dish shrimp is not necessary to boil, but you need to clean them. Then they should be slightly salted and sprinkled with ground white pepper. Then, as in the shrimp and garlic recipe, fry three whole cloves peeled and husk and extract them. In two different bowls we spread:
- a mixture of two beaten eggs and a tablespoon of Dijon mustard,
- a mixture of a quarter cup of cornmeal and ¾ - rice (these exotic products can be replaced with semolina or wheat flour, but coarsely ground).
Heat the garlic oil. We take each shrimp by its tail, dip it first into the egg mixture, and then into the flour mixture. Fry in a large amount of oil for about three minutes, until the batter gets a golden hue. Serve this dish with a spicy sauce of tomatoes, paprika and onions.
Shrimps in soups
Seafood gives the first dishes an indescribable “oceanic” taste. And such soups are no less famous than the legendary Caesar salad with shrimp. Their recipe is always simple. But you need to remember that shrimps are laid in cold water, and not in boiling water. That is how seafood gives all its taste and aroma to the broth. Do not forget to add another half a glass of dry white wine to the pan for a more refined shade. Shrimp goes well with garlic, dill, coconut milk. These crustaceans will find a place in the ear, French Bouillabaisse fish soup, mixed with other seafood. But if you have frozen boiled shrimps, then you need to add them to the dish at the end of cooking. And so that the broth is fragrant and rich, we cook either a chicken or shells of sea mollusks. But even ready shrimps are poured into a saucepan half an hour before the end of the cooking process. Just make the fire minimal and simmer the soup under the lid. Serve, decorating the edge of the plate with a slice of lemon and a sprig of fresh dill.
Shrimps in the second course
Paella, boiled rice and pasta with seafood have gained worldwide popularity. Here is a recipe for shrimp pasta. Two cloves of garlic and half the onion finely chop. Melt in a pan two tablespoons of butter and fry the vegetables until a golden hue is obtained. Add 200 grams of peeled raw shrimp. Fry, gently stirring, 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle with salt, white pepper and free cream 150 milliliters of cream. When they boil, season the sauce with fresh parsley and turn off the heat, covering the pan. Cook the pasta (spaghetti or tagliatelle) to the state of al dente, as recommended by the instructions on the packaging of pasta. Drain and transfer to sauce. Warm up again, if necessary, and serve.
Mexican Risotto
Caesar salad with shrimps (the recipe for this dish will be given below) and the Spanish paella "Marisco" share the podium with amazing rice with seafood. Make Mexican risotto, you and your family will surely like it. In a pot, melt two soup spoons of butter. Pour 150 grams of washed long-grain rice. Fry until the cereal becomes translucent, like bugles. Carefully pour 400 milliliters of water or fish stock, pour in your favorite spices. Scalp four hundred grams of ripe tomatoes with boiling water, remove the skin, cut the flesh into slices. Throw tomatoes to the rice. Bring to a boil, lower the lid and cook over low heat for about ten minutes. During this time, we will clear 350 grams of shrimp, chop one young zucchini into small cubes, chop two tablespoons of black olives without stones, and take out 100 g of sweet corn from a can. All this is thrown into a cauldron and stewed under the lid for some more time until the rice is completely ready. This pilaf must be sprinkled with a mixture of crumbled tortillas (Mexican chips), grated cheddar cheese and finely chopped green onions. Spicy sauce is served separately.
Shrimp Caesar Salad
The classic recipe, paradoxically, does not include either chicken or seafood. All these are later variations. The very idea of this method of cooking salad came to the mind of the American chef of Italian origin Caesar Cardini from hopelessness. When a large company came to his place at the end of the working day and demanded something to eat, it only turned out in the refrigerator that there were salad leaves, a few eggs, olive oil, sauce, parmesan cheese and a white loaf. But the resourceful chef was not at a loss and prepared from this minuscule a salad that went down in history and became synonymous with exquisite but modest luxury. The light, sophisticated basis of this dish was later supplemented with various “nutritious” ingredients. Most of all, two came up to the classic Caesar: boiled chicken breast and shrimp. But the main highlight of the salad is not they, but ordinary chicken eggs. But let's take a closer look at the Caesar recipe with shrimp.
Product Preparation
A head of romaine lettuce in ice water to restore freshness and crispness to the leaves. Baton (but better French baguette), peel, crumble into cubes and fry in butter or dried in the oven. We need one hundred grams of crackers. A simple (classic) Caesar recipe with shrimp requires the use of one egg. This point should be discussed in more detail. It is not cooked hard-boiled or soft-boiled, or even not using the poached method. We put a bowl of water on fire. When it boils, turn off the stove and immediately dip the egg. With a stopwatch in our hands, we measure exactly a minute. We take out the egg and leave it to lie at room temperature for about a quarter of an hour. During this heat treatment, the yolk will remain raw, and the protein will only just turn a cloudy fleur. A few large or 100 grams of small shrimp are boiled in salted water, cleaned. Chop the garlic clove finely.
Cooking salad
We take a wide flat dish and begin to add “Caesar” with shrimps from prepared products. A simple recipe suggests starting the process with a plate grease of garlic. Then with big hands lettuce leaves - large. Sprinkle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix. Sprinkle with lemon juice and add a few drops of Worcester sauce. Mix again. We break the egg and try to cover the entire area of lettuce leaves. Add the shrimp. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan (two tablespoons). Before serving Caesar salad with shrimps, the recipe suggests sprinkling croutons on it. By the way, seafood for this dish can be taken not only boiled. If you have several tiger or king prawns, fry them by adding a little liquid honey and mustard seeds at the end.
Other shrimp salads
Of course, Caesar gained worldwide fame. But there are other, equally tasty shrimp salads. Their recipes are incredibly simple. Here, for example, is one of them. Peel and chop three fresh cucumbers with thin semicircles. Four small tomatoes cut into slices. One small bunch of green onion crumble. Pour the vegetables with two tablespoons of vegetable oil, sprinkle with vinegar, add salt, a little sugar and your favorite spices for the salad. With shrimp, the recipe suggests sorting it out like this. Lightly boil them in salted water with lemon. We clean it. Fry the meat in garlic oil. Add to the salad. You can not mix, but put the seafood in a slide in the middle of the dish, and spread the vegetables around. Bon Appetit!