How do people poach their shrimp? I am lately the possessor of a Breville induction cooktop, and was able to control the temperature precisely yesterday. I shelled a bunch of large shrimp, lightly salted them with a pinch of baking soda and stuck 'em in the fridge. I simmered the shells with onion, celery, fennel fronds, a bay leaf, some tarragon and peppercorns for about 20 minutes, strained, added cold water and white wine to cool the broth, then added lemon slices. Stuck the shrimp in the cool broth, put it on the Breville and set it on a slow climb to 150. A couple of minutes after they turned pink they were done. Removed them, spread them on a tray to cool, then chilled them till it was cocktail sauce time (ketchup, lemon juice, horseradish, fish sauce, etc.)
I do the same when prepping my shrimp, but add ice water. Is the ice water not needed to achieve the same result?
My poaching method isn’t nearly as fancy as yours: I bring a small pot of salted water to a boil, take it off the burner, add the shrimp, and take them out after they start curling, but not too much. I drop them in ice water, then dry, cool, serve.
I like to save my shells for dishes where I want the resulting ‘stock’ to impart overall shrimp flavor — like my Thai shrimp curry.
Wouldn’t simply poaching the shrimp shell-on in the pimped water achieve the same (although that would complicate the salt & baking soda treatment)?
But worth the price. I now only buy wild Gulf or Argentinian red shrimp, although I did get the Aldi Tiger Shrimp once, at linguafood’s recommendation. Not sure if they’re wild or farm raised. If the latter, they’re the best farm-raised I’ve ever had.
We are spoiled, but every year the shrimp fleet gets smaller mostly due to the competition from imported shrimp. We’re waiting for our legislature to pass a labeling law.
Excellent recipe. I made it mostly as written except that I dropped the olive oil to probably just under half a cup, and doubled the garlic and paprika. (I like smoked paprika a lot.) I was a bit skeptical of cooking the pasta in its sauce, but it worked perfectly. The flavor of everything, shrimp included, was dead-on. Only thing I didn’t like was the almonds: The textures of the shrimp and pasta together matched really well and I found the combination to be deeply comforting. And then the almonds come in with a crunch that, for me, was kind of angular and woke the whole thing up a bit too much. I will absolutely make this again and will omit them. Some kind of softer garnish could be interesting - or maybe just smaller or less-fried pieces of almond. (I used slivered almonds, and cooked them as per the recipe.)
I winged a less fancy version of this on Sunday. I had a lot of shrimpy broth from my poaching (described upthread) so I sweated some garlic in olive oil, added the broth, half a small can of good tomatoes, some water, brought to all to boil and dumped in some long thin pasta. Simmered till pasta was barely done, stirring occasionally, then added the leftover poached shrimp to warm for a few minutes in the residual heat, showered with parsley and served – with a hunk of pecorino Romano and a fine microplane on the table for people to add their own. Not everybody in my household can currently enjoy heat so there was a separate contained of Sicilian red pepper flakes (from Curio) for people to add.
In an effort to simplify, I have been doing a lot of of these one pot pasta dishes over the last three years, and I operate by eye in judging the initial liquid quantity – and also think about whether I want the sauce to just cling to the pasta at the end, or be slightly soupy (as I wanted this time).
My favorite way with shrimp is to first make a broth with shrimp shells, dried red chillies, a bay leaf, some coriander seeds, some fennel seeds, onion, etc., then concentrate it.
I pop mustard seeds in mustard oil, add the peeled shrimp, a pinch of turmeric powder, salt, some halved grape tomatoes (one per shrimp, two if I want that flavor to be more forward), stir at high heat for a about 30 seconds, then add the concentrated broth (strained) and as insane an amount of chopped green (“Thai”) chillies as I am in the mood for that day. I watch carefully, turning the shrimp as needed till barely done, turn off the heat, stir in chopped cilantro, and squirt a decent amount of lime juice.
