Sautéed Shrimp with Garlic and Lemon

A sauté is executed very quickly, over high heat, with just a small amount of oil. Do not wander away from the stove!

Ingredients: 3T Ground sea salt or Kosher salt 1T Ground black pepper 1 lb. saltwater shrimp 16/20 or 21/25 size (but do not use “Black Tiger” or freshwater shrimp) Juice of one lemon (remove seeds) 2T fresh minced garlic 2T extra-virgin olive oil 2T canola oil

 

Recipe: Short Form

In a hurry? Follow these quick steps.

1) Devein and peel shrimp, leaving the tail and the last shell segment on.

2) Rinse shrimp under cold water and pat as dry as you can with paper towels.

3) Just before cooking, toss the shrimp with the salt and pepper. (If you are using less than a pound of shrimp, use proportionately less of the other ingredients.)

4) Combine the olive and canola oils in a sauté pan and heat on highest flame until the first wisp of smoke appears.

5) Add the shrimp to the pan, quickly arranging the shrimp on the bottom of the pan in one layer. (If you are cooking the whole pound of shrimp, you will need to cook several batches.) Do not crowd the pan: each shrimp must be lying flat on the pan bottom to brown properly. Leave the heat on high and do not stir or shake the pan once you have arranged the shrimp.

6) After about 2 minutes, when the shrimp have begun to brown lightly, quickly turn each one over individually with your tongs. Wait about 30 seconds and then add the minced garlic. Now shake the pan lightly or stir gently so that the garlic does not brown at all.

7) Remove shrimp from pan as soon as they are done: they will be fully cooked when they lose the last trace of translucency (raw appearance) at the thickest part.

8) Immediately add the lemon juice to the pan and reduce for one minute. Pour the lemon juice and any remaining garlic bits over the shrimp and serve. (Accompany with plain white or basmati rice.)

Recipe: Long Form

Have some time to deal with cooking theory? Read on.
Cooking this simple dish to perfection requires lots of attention to the fundamental cooking technique.

1) Most likely you’ll be using frozen shrimp. They’re fine, just buy them in a 5-pound block like the restaurants do to save money. Compass Brand and Ocean Garden are among the finest frozen “finger-packed” shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico. (These blocks of frozen shrimp fanned out with their tails all lined up are works of art in themselves.) You can defrost part of a block in a colander under cold running water and then wrap the remaining frozen part in plastic wrap, seal it in a plastic bag and pop it in the freezer again. (Don’t forget to label and date it.) By the way, the number designation refers to the number of pieces of shrimp per pound. For example, 16/20 means you get between 16 and 20 shrimp in each pound. The bigger the shrimp, the lower the number. Leaving the tail and the last shell section attached to the shrimp gives a much more appetizing look, but if you think your diners will be averse to removing the shells, you can takes the tails off before cooking. I much prefer them left on. “Black Tiger” or freshwater shrimp are cheaper, but to me they are bland, necessitating tons of salt, and, worse, they cook very quickly, making it nearly impossible not to overcook them.

2) One of the keys to a good sauté is to have ingredients as dry as possible before placing them in the pan. Any water left on our shrimp, for example, will turn instantly to steam and thereby inhibit the browning action which occurs at temperatures much higher than the temperature of steam. Flavors developed by browning are essential to sauté, so pat those shrimp as dry as you can.

3) Add the salt just before cooking! This is true when cooking almost any type of food. Salt added more than five minutes before cooking will begin to draw the moisture out of meat or fish, resulting in a drier, tougher product. In fact, this process we call curing and it has its place in our repertoire of cooking techniques, but it is not part of the sauté process! (This is the reason why you do not add salt to marinades.) Use Kosher salt or sea salt, but never use that fine granulated iodized salt that comes in the round boxes. I know we all grew up with that, but it really is inferior. Try a taste test and prove it for yourself. Then read the label on the round box and find out what sorts of chemicals you’re ingesting in addition to the sodium. Please stick with sea salt or Kosher salt. Add the pepper here too, together with the salt, though this is not as critical. Since black pepper is a spice, this is really optional, and according to taste.

4) Olive and canola are the two principal oils you should be using for cooking, both at home and in the professional kitchen. They both have high smoke points, making them great for sauté, and they are both very good from a nutritional point of view. Canola is cheaper, but tastes bland, so mix with some extra-virgin olive oil for more flavor. (There are very good commercial blends on the market: 80% canola and 20% extra-virgin, for example.) Don’t forget when adding oil to a sauté pan -- oil expands like everything else when it heats up, so put a little bit less in the pan than you think you’ll need. Watch the oil like a hawk, and when you see the first trace of smoke, add the shrimp. Putting the food in the hot oil will lower the pan temperature somewhat, so don’t worry about burning the shrimp. A common mistake in sautéing is to put the item to be cooked in the pan before the oil is properly heated. This usually results in a greasy under-cooked product, since the food will tend to absorb the oil at a lower temperature instead of browning properly.

5) Lay the shrimp into the oil with your tongs in a motion away from you so there is no risk of splashing yourself with hot oil.

6) Another common sauté error is to put too much food in the pan. Crowding the pan lowers the temperature and allows moisture to build up in the pan, once again impeding the browning process. Position the shrimp carefully so that they just fill the bottom of the pan in one layer.

7) And don’t forget, letting the shrimp brown without stirring or shaking the pan after you arrange them initially is also important to attaining a tasty and visually-appealing final product. Don’t play with them in the pan!

8) After about 2 minutes, when the shrimp have browned nicely, turn each one over individually with your tongs. Wait about 30 seconds and add the minced garlic. In another 30 seconds shake the pan and check for doneness. When they have lost the last trace of translucency (raw look) at the thickest part, THEY ARE DONE! I have to emphasize this because most cooks and even chefs overcook shrimp. This is a culinary tragedy. Shrimp must be removed from heat the instant they are done, otherwise they become dry and tough. Please concentrate on this. If you can’t get this right, email me.

9) Remove shrimp and garlic from the pan when the shrimp are done. The garlic was added late to the pan to avoid browning it. Even browned garlic has a burned flavor, so be very careful here to add the garlic late to the pan so that it does not brown.

10) Reduce the lemon juice in the sauté pan for about a minute and pour it over the cooked shrimp. Remember lemon seeds are bitter and they must be removed. Whatever you do, please do not use bottled lemon juice. Refrigerated, fresh-squeezed lemon juice available in quarts is OK, but the bottled, processed kind is really nasty.

11) Serve and devour. Happy Eating!