Garlic Fried Shrimp
Test Recipe: Garlic Fried Shrimp from Marnie Henricksson’s Everyday Asian. Serves 4.
Ingredients list: 1 1/2 pounds large or extra-large shrimp, 6 tablespoons canola oil, 4 large garlic cloves (minced), half an onion (thinly sliced), 2 tablespoons sugar, two tablespoons fish sauce, half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, cilantro sprigs for garnish.
Directions: “1. Devein the shrimp while leaving the shells on. To do this, lay them on a table and hold them in place with one hand while you slice through the shell down the back of the shrimp with a sharp knife from the top to the tail, about 1/4 inch deep. Remove any black vein. Put the shrimp in a bowl of lightly salted water until you are ready to use them.
“2. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and stir-fry for a minute. Add the onion and reduce the heat to low. Let the onion cook until it is very soft and transparent, about 15 minutes. Add the sugar and stir until it dissolves. Add the fish sauce, salt, and pepper and stir to combine, simmer for a minute, and remove from the heat. The mixture should look smooth and syrupy and the oil will have separated from the sauce.
“3. Carefully pour the separated oil into a medium frying pan and heat over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp and stir-fry until they are cooked through and the shells are pink, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the sauce from the first pan, stir to combine it with the shrimp, and heat through. Transfer to a serving platter and garnish with the cilantro springs.”
Henricksson suggests serving this dish with jasmine rice and a salad, but I had it straight. My main worry was during the stage where the oil needs to be separated from the sauce. I wound up scooping oil with a spoon from one pan into the next, which was to be used for cooking the shrimp. Although this was surely a less-than-elegant solution, it didn’t seem to affect the final result.
The result was finger-licking-good shrimp in shells. Yes, shrimp in shells require a bit more effort to eat, but there’s something about sucking the traces of a savory sauce off the shrimp shells that makes it worthwhile, and that just doesn’t work the same way with shelled shrimp. The technique used in this recipe is a Vietnamese technique often used with soft-shelled crabs, and it leads to a sauce that is rich and caramelized. Fish sauce reaches a pinnacle in a recipe like this; it is transformed from a smelly condiment into the basis for a sweet sauce that gains depth from the fond left on the pan by the garlic and onions. This is a great dish for summer at the beach.
Rating: 9 out of 10.
