KnittyOtter: Recipe: Garlic & Ginger Shrimp

Clickety Biggety for a clear photo:

Several days ago in a conversation with My Best Friend she mentioned that she was going to have shrimp for dinner. I asked her how she makes hers as I have never been successful with those little guys. I used to have a fear, almost, in cooking shrimp. I didn't trust them to be "right" or something. Since Cookie told me what she does I've made this twice. Once on a night when the honey wasn't around, just cooked a small portion for myself and then again on Saturday for the both of us. My honey is not a fan of shrimp in general. This is the one way of preparing shrimp that he can get behind. He even asked if it could be put into the rotation of things I make on a regular basis. *happy dance* I said yes, naturally.

This dish is inspired by Cookie's recipe. There are a few differences, Lime and Pasta, that I changed for what I had on hand and what seemed like an interesting add in. The most important thing she told me about was the type pf shrimp to get. Her wise advice was to seek out the already peeled & deveined shrimp, which is something I had never done before. I gotta tell ya, I hate deveining shrimp. There is always the worry and doubt that I didn't get it all and then I no longer trusted it. This pre-de-ickified shrimp is freaking AWESOME. The kind Cookie told me about was Full Circle Organic Shrimp. I already enjoy this brands fresh frozen fish. The Tuna, Mahi Mahi & Halibut are my favorites. So easy and no gross weird stuff to be cut off or removed. It's only been in the past year or so that I got over my reluctance to prepare fish and in part it was due to this fish and the fish over at Trader Joe's.

Garlic & Ginger Shrimp

You can make 6 Shrimp per person and I'll tell you how I made mine for two.

Take 12 shrimp out of the bag and place them in a bowl with some cold tap water. Let them sit ten minutes or so and then drain the water. If you are going to make them in a few hours cover and set aside in the fridge, otherwise let them stay in the bowl on the counter a little longer until they feel thawed. Though to be honest with ya, I let mine sit in the water like 20 minutes or so and they were just fine. Once they are pliable remove the tails and there is still a black stringy thing on the inside curve of the shrimp. Under some running water that scrapes right off though. I don't want anything weird on my shrimp, thank you very much.

While the shrimp are thawing bring your water to a boil for the pasta. Lightly salt the water to your desire and once it's boiling add your two servings of Linguine. Cook it per your box directions. Mine said 20 minutes so that's what I did. :P

Go ahead and slice up your Garlic longways. Don't make it too fine or too small. For two I used 4 or 5 small cloves of garlic.

Mince your fresh Ginger root. I peeled the ginger and the sliced it longways, then sideways to make it a fine mince. I used one large nob off the ol' Ginger root for this. Next time I think I will add more.

Cookie told me to use more ginger and garlic than you'd think and it will be fabulous. As usual she is right. *L*

You can also go ahead and slice up a green onion at this time. I used one this time and think I will double that next time.

Once the pasta is done and draining and the shrimp are ready to go put a tablespoon of olive oil in your pan. When that's starting to get hot add the garlic and ginger. Give it a stir and let it sit a minute or two.

Next add in a bit of butter, tablespoon or so, then add your shrimp. Let them turn pink on that side and then flip them over. Shrimp cook pretty fast and have a lovely built in color change guide so you know when they are ready. ;^)

Set half of the cooked shrimp onto your cutting board. Cut those shrimp into 4 or so pieces each. I did this because it makes nice bite size pieces of shrimp and gave each bite of pasta more shrimp tasting opportunity. I left half whole just cause they look cool that way. :P Add the chopped up shrimp back to the pan.

Now you can add your pasta to the mix.

Add in your sliced green onions and a several big dashes of red pepper flakes.

Take a lime zest it and add the zest to the pan. Slice the lime in half and squeeze all of the lime juice from both halves into the pan as well.

Use your tongs or whatever to toss the shrimp mixture and pasta together. It will look fabulous!

Finally, you can plate it and have dinner. Very Simple, Fast and DELICIOUS!!

I served this with a green veggie filled salad and a Flying Dog Pale Ale. Though you can serve it with whatever you want. :P

Ingredient List - Serves Two

12 Shrimp
4 or 5 cloves Garlic
1 Large Nob Ginger
1 or 2 Green Onions
Several Dashes Red Pepper Flakes - depends on how spicy you like it
Tbsp Olive Oil
Tbsp Butter
Whole Lime - Zest and Juice
Linguine

That was so good we may have it again sometime this week or weekend. I may experiment with adding Lemongrass and Cilantro to the dish as well. Maybe instead of mixing it with Pasta put it on top of Jasmine Rice like Cookie does too.

Thanks for your recipe/tips that led me to make this dish, Cookie!! :D