Regardless of the sanctions in our stores, you can still buy seafood for every taste and budget. From a frozen sea cocktail to chic, live crabs weighing 5-6 kg. Somewhere between them in terms of price and status are shrimp. Of course, you will have to look for cold-water ones, but warm-water ones can be found in a dozen options. First of all, shrimps are fresh-frozen or boiled-frozen, and this, like all crustaceans, depends on their color. The first ones are grayish, the second ones are pinkish, it is difficult to confuse them. Inside these groups, the prawns are divided according to the following: in shell with head, in shell without head, peeled with a tail and completely peeled. The last gradation is in size. The smallest are designated by the term "salad" or "cocktail", the rest are marked with numbers from 120/140 to 6/8. These numbers indicate how many pieces are on average per pound of weight.
Pick your recipe
You will need
- - Shrimp;
- - butter or olive oil;
- - lemon juice;
- - White wine;
- - salt;
- - spices;
- - shallot;
- - garlic;
- - bowls;
- - knife;
- - a frying pan.
Instruction manual
1
Choose tiger or king prawns if you want to serve them as an independent dish. You should not buy relatively inexpensive bath prawns - these are artificially grown Chinese crustaceans sold by weight. They clogged almost all the hypermarkets. These prawns are all-season, which makes them popular with retail professionals. One trouble - not the most useful substances are added to their feed, therefore it is better not to take these products. Opt for peeled shrimps or shrimps in shell - there is not much difference, but it is better to choose the first between gray and pink. They were not subjected to heat treatment before freezing and they will be tastier than fried ones.
2
Choose the appropriate dishes. Traditionally, thick-walled cast-iron frying pans are preferred for frying, but if this is not in your kitchen arsenal, a ceramic or stainless steel pan will do. Anneal it and pour a little oil - it is better to fry the prawns in olive. You can season them with a small amount of thyme, but it is better not to clog the natural taste, but to emphasize with crystals of sea salt, in the company of which the shrimps really open more fully.
3
Fry the gray shrimp for 3-4 minutes, stirring often for even cooking. You will be able to visually assess the readiness - all crustaceans on fire change their color, turning into pinkish-orange. For boiled shrimp a couple of minutes is enough. Try not to overdo it, with increasing cooking time, seafood becomes a little "rubber". Now is the time to season with salt and serve. Sometimes they are served with beer, sometimes with wine. A good accompaniment to shrimp is vegetables cooked in parchment: zucchini, asparagus, fennel, sweet bell pepper.
4
If you want to cook shrimp in a creamy sauce, you need to start the preparatory stage with frying shallots. It is advisable to slightly darken it under the lid, then put peeled shrimp in the same place, and after a minute - pour in the cream, salt and pepper with white pepper. So that the prawns are evenly warmed up, and the sauce is slightly thickened, the dish should be constantly stirred during short cooking. You can serve with rice, or you can drop the fresco paste (freshly prepared tagliatelle or parpardelle) directly into the pan with shrimps, keep it together on the fire for 2-3 minutes and serve it with white semi-dry wine.
5
Buy tiger prawns and high-quality frozen porcini mushrooms - we will make a dish beloved by millions in which these two products are the royal couple, and the vegetable accompaniment is the gastronomic retinue. To start the shrimp, add a drop of lemon juice in water, salted and acidified. Then cool and clean. At the same time, it is advisable to leave ponytails - so shrimp look even better. Sauté a few cloves of garlic and a few coriander kernels in refined olive oil. Add the porcini mushrooms so that they lie in the pan in one layer and do not touch each other. For some time it will appear that the mushrooms are stewed, not fried. Do not turn down the fire, the liquid will evaporate quickly. Put to the mushrooms squares of sweet pepper, small cubes of carrots, halves of pre-blanched brussels sprouts. Salt and pepper. If you wish, you can sprinkle with dried thyme or oregano, but you can not do this. Porcini mushrooms have their very pleasant aroma and it has probably already been transmitted to vegetables. 2-3 minutes before cooking, place the prepared shrimp in the pan. Cover and let the tastes enter into interaction (in the language of professional chefs, this moment is called "getting married"). No doubt you will enjoy the dish so much that you will want to repeat it very soon.
6
Fry peeled shrimp with bamboo shoots, as they like in China. It is hardly reasonable to argue that Southeast Asia is the main distribution area for both king and tiger shrimps, and therefore it is here that these seafood are traditionally considered their own. There are dozens of recipes with them, but in this version, shrimp can be found in the woks of street vendors, and in expensive fashionable restaurants. In our country, bamboo is sold canned, it has a rather crispy texture and a not very pronounced taste, and therefore easily absorbs the aromas of spices and spices with which it is prepared.
7
Chop the ginger in slices, fry in soybean oil until it is light brown, then remove it, we will no longer need it. Bamboo shoots can be sold in whole pieces, cut in half or chopped. Drain them from the marinade and, depending on which ones you have, either chop or leave as is, blot with a napkin, freeing from excess moisture, place in a pan. Fry the bamboo for no more than 3-4 minutes, then add the shrimp, pour in the soy sauce, season with ginger paste and serve in a couple of minutes. You can offer rice to the side dish, but in general it is an independent dish that does not need much accompaniment.
note
Try not to keep the shrimp on the fire for too long - they can become "rubber".
Useful advice
If possible, it is better to buy shrimps that have not been cooked for frying.