Steamed Shrimp

Steamed shrimp are bright and light and nourishing and hits the spot every time. Black pepper and cayenne give the shrimp a little spice, lemon keeps it fresh while the shrimp juices mix with butter and olive oil to create a decadent sauce. It’s quick enough for a weeknight supper, but special enough to serve royalty.

Here is one of my all-time favorite recipes that I learned from my dad. Not a thing was changed. I did measure the seasoning for you because well, “salt until white, add black pepper and cayenne (more black than red) – juice should be a little too salty and a little too peppery” most likely would be challenging for you measuring purists.

Before sharing this recipe with y’all I did a little searching for the background of steamed shrimp. Steamed shrimp does not sound like something unique to my beloved part of the word. Except, the shrimp are not cooked in a steamer and after scouring the internet and cookbooks for a few hours, I came up with nothing similar to this recipe. Not even in the ten thousand Louisiana cookbooks I have.

I headed straight to the source, Dear Ole Dad. Come to find out, he learned it from a family friend many moons ago (longer than my memory serves because I don’t remember not eating this dish), but said he’s never had it anywhere else. With that being said, I think I can fairly put the Louisiana stamp on it.

I have a couple of ground rules before cooking. Y’all know I’m a pretty free-flowing girl in the kitchen, so when I say there are rules, FOLLOW them. You must use head on shrimp. You will not create one of the best broths in the world without the heads. Head-on shrimp can be challenging to find so always ask your seafood guy if he can get them. If you got a good one, you’ll bond over this request and you’ll be a customer favorite. Next, have beaucoup amounts of New Orleans-style French bread to sop up the glorious juice. If you don’t have access to it, find an airy bread that does not have a strong flavor and is on the drier side. Trust me, the worst thing that can happen is you run out of bread for the juice. Make los bread with the extra bread.

Steamed Shrimp Ingredients
8 Tbl (1 stick) of butter
1/3 c olive oil
1 large onion
2 garlic bulbs
4 stalks of celery
4 lemons
4 pounds of head-on shrimp (25 count or lower -- that is larger)
4 tsp sea salt
2 Tbl black pepper
1 tsp cayenne

Steamed Shrimp Directions
In a large stock pot, add 8 Tbl of butter and 1/3 c olive oil.

Slice off both ends of the onion and slice it in half down the pole. Lay it flat. Make two cuts on each half going pole to pole while making the cut end bottom center. Add the onion to the pot.

Slice the garlic bulbs in half around the equator. Remove the loose, paper skin. But leave the roots and tight skins on. Put them in the pot.

Slice off the very hard and wide white part off the four celery stalks. Take a vegetable peeler (or sharp paring knife) and skim off the outer most edge of the ribbed side. You can skip this step but it doesn’t take much time and makes eating the cooked celery far more pleasurable. Slice the stalks into thirds and throw them in the pot.

Slice the four lemons around the equator and put them in the pot.

Put the pot on medium low heat with the pot top on and let the vegetables wilt. You can start them in a cold pot, but bring the heat up to the gentlest of sizzles.

Give your shrimp a good rinse. Once the vegetables are soft, add the shrimp to the pot. Top it off with 4 tsp of sea salt, 2 Tbl black pepper, and 1 tsp of cayenne. Turn up the heat of the pot to get the gentlest of simmers. Cover the pot.

Fold the shrimp every 3 minutes. To fold, glide a spoon down the edge of the pot the down the middle halfway, pull up bringing the bottom shrimp to the top. Be gentle, you don’t want to decapitate or smash the shrimp.

As soon as the shrimp are prink, they are finished cooking. Do not go longer, they will be overcooked and tough. As soon as they are done, remove them from heat, and put into serving bowls or trays. Do not try to keep them hot, or leave them all in the pot, they will overcook. You can put them into serving bowls and keep them warm on low in a warming drawer.

Notes
My dad has a tip for you if you have extra juice (I will come at you if you have extra juice due to running out of bread), mix in a little cream to the juice to create a bisque or a sauce to pour over fish or an omelet.

I don’t recommend cooking more than 4 lbs of shrimp for this dish in a single pot. It will be too hard to stir and you’ll end up with damaged and overcooked shrimp.