Preamble
This dish is also known as Gambas al Ajo in some parts of Spain. The quantities are going to depend on a couple of things: how many you are serving, how big your shrimp are, and the size of your frying pan, because you want the shrimp to nestle quite close but not on top of one another in the pan. This recipe works well with largish frozen and thawed shrimp, but the sauce (you dip bread into it) is what’s special, so even if you can only get the cheap small shrimp, just get more. Make sure they are thawed and well-drained before starting.
You can adjust how spicy this dish is. In some parts of Spain, it’s not spicy at all. They just use the sweet paprika and leave out the rest. But feel free to add extra dried chilies if you love it hot.
The only difficult part of this dish is making sure you don’t burn the garlic. If you do, stop everything, wipe out the pan and begin again, because burnt garlic makes this dish inedible.
Ingredients
500 gm Shrimp: Fresh or frozen and thawed (not precooked)
4-5 cloves of garlic minced
The grated rind of ½ lemon
½ tsp Salt
¼ tsp Black pepper
4-5 tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp sweet paprika
2 tsp hot paprika
4 or 6 small dried chilies
¼ cup white wine or dry vermouth
1/8 cup of chopped parsley or cilantro (optional)
Method
Add the oil into a frying pan on medium heat. Add the garlic, dried chilies and the grated lemon rind. Allow the garlic to soften but not burn. Swirl the pan around to get the oil flavoured with the lemon rind and chilies. The moment the garlic starts to get any colour, add in the shrimp. That will cool down the pan, and you can now adjust your heat. You want a nice bubbling sound. Sprinkle the two types of paprika, salt and pepper over the shrimp and turn them as they cook. The whole pan will turn a brilliant red. Add the wine or vermouth and bring the pan up to a bubble. The shrimp are cooked the moment they start to curl inward, but you still want to make sure you’ve cooked the alcohol off – so let it go a little longer if necessary. Finally, turn off the heat, and the herbs in and stir. They’ll wilt in the heat of the oil.
Serve in the hot frying pan or individual bowls with lots of crusty bread. Do NOT discard any of the oil. It’s meant to be eaten! Also, don’t serve this on a table cloth you love.
This dish sounds like it might be as delicious as your writing.
This dish sounfs like it might be as deliciois as your writing.
*sounds
*delicious
This sounded good and pretty simple. So I made it the other night, and it was great! Thanks for sharing.
This sounds delicious! Remittance Girl: your source of the hottest fiction and Spanish quisine 🙂
These look marvelous RG. I hope all is well. In these ghastly times, this era. The only thing that seems to be helping is watching old Brideshead Revisited, for me. The year was 1982 here, once upon a time very long ago. RG I should like to know what you think because, of anyone I knew once, this is what it means here, the ‘grab them by’ and so I give you Natasha Evergreen. I smile when I look at you in twitsville, and see you in that courtyard, and ps: Dr. means a very great deal, as you did it, my dear. https://www.wattpad.com/28740536-where-i-laid-me-down-to-sleep – this read is between us only for now. NOT genre. I am so disgusted about how both of us are actually writers. I knew that at Waiting Room with you on the page. It’s all monstrous. Truly. Imagine 1980, Los Angeles. punk rock era and you have it my friend. I’m going to to make these, just because they were yours. RG, it will be very hard to lose your mother. I understand because I lost mine in 2002. I admire you so much in that little tiled courtyard of yours. We have lived in a very difficult generation, nothing like the one our mothers inhabited. Sending a hug, across oceans, and time.
HOT AND SWEET paprika I have a bag of Smokey I picked up in Crete last year at the meat shop In Platania. Along with black sesame seeds , and a big bag of the Cretan Oregano , and a bag of there local mint . One of the only countries where they seem incapable of cleaning there shrimp before cooking . Might try this dish in Crete next year hopingly , sound Spanish might hype it up a wee bit .