Our Favorite Shrimp Scampi Recipe

One of my families favorite dishes is Shrimp Scampi. I have been cooking shrimp for my family for years. Depending where you are in the world shrimp can be a great inexpensive meal. It is also a very versatile dish as it may be served with many conventional side dishes. Some people just do not enjoy shrimp and I have always thought that they have never had shrimp prepared properly. My simple recipe will also work with gulf prawns. I do not like sea food that is overly pungent. If the dish smells to strong like fish I will likely not eat it. But I do enjoy fish and shrimp often. Mostly because I take great care in selecting the shrimp and preparing it. Even if you buy shrimp that is totally ready to be cooked it should always be re inspected and rinsed several times. In most places I have been, frozen shrimp is the freshest shrimp that you can buy. Be careful not to buy shrimp if it has an overly fishy smell.This could indicate that it may be old and will have a real fishy taste also.

If you have to thaw your shrimp, I normally put them in the sink in a strainer. Let the shrimp thaw for several hours until they are almost thawed out . They are easier to work with if they are still a little bit frozen. Many of the shrimp these days come prepped. They are gutted but still have the shell and the dorsal vein that I like to remove. Shells are easy to remove when you use a small sharp scissor, it also seems that you will be less likely to cut yourself with a small scissors than a large knife. I snip down the entire back of the shrimps shell at the same time I am scoring the service next to the dorsal vein I recommend removing. It first the process seems tedious but remove the dorsal vein and the shell. Place clean shrimp under running water in a strainer. Keep running water over them as you are cleaning them.

Every 10-20 shrimp remove from the water and place in a bowl with lemon juice. I have found that this tends to remove any scrimpy smell they may have. I generally soak them in lemon juice for about 30 minutes. Them back into the strainer and rinse with cold water.

That was the hard part! The shrimp are ready to cook now. Find a frying pan and melt butter and use either cloves of garlic or you can use garlic salt to taste. Heat up the pan with garlic and butter. You will know when its hot enough if you flick a few drops of water at it and the pan spits. You will know if you are getting it to hot if your butter burns and starts smoking. With a little practice you will be a pro. Fry the shrimp until it has sort of an orange color. They fry up fast, in less than 10 minutes for a pound of shrimp. After you have fried them turn the burner off place a cover on your frying pan and the shrimp will keep cooking.

We enjoy eating our shrimp with several different condiments, most can be bought at your local super market We like to have rice with our shrimp and maybe a small salad. One pound feeds a family of three. Certainly you can think of many other ways to cook and serve shrimp. Cleaning and preparing shrimp is the secret to creating consistent great tasting meals every-time. I hope you enjoy preparing and eating your meal!