The only recipe for garlic butter shrimp you'll need. Nothing beats succulent shrimps cooked in rich shrimp infused butter.Add some chilli, add some lemon, add freshly chopped parsley and you're winning all day long and the whole thing takes less than 10 minutes.Perfect as an appetiser, great with fluffy rice, or homemade pasta to make a simple shrimp pasta perfect for dinner or lunch, all year round.
What I like to do is extract some of the flavours from the shells by steeping them in the butter before cooking the shrimps. This step is optional but it results in a seriously tasty version of garlic butter shrimp. Alternatively, you can use my mushroom garlic butter recipe or simply just plain butter.
To do this, simply heat the butter and the shrimp shells together in a skillet and keep it on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Take care not to burn the butter. A bit of brown butter is delicious but don't go overboard.
Once infused, "harvest" the shrimp butter buy passing it through a sieve placed over a bowl, pot or pan. Press out all the butter making sure only dry shells are left in the sieve. You can discard the shells or dry them out to later grind them up into a shrimp seasoning. Most of you will probably just chuck it out and that fine.
Once the butter is in the pan, add the cleaned, deveined shrimps along with crushed garlic, finely chopped chilli(optional but also necessary) and a dash of fish sauce(optional). Let it gently cook on medium heat until the shrimps are just done. This will be a quick process and will take about one minute. If your pan is smaller and you have a lot of shrimp, move them around to make sure they all cook evenly.
Remove the pan from the heat once the shrimps are cooked. Add chopped parsley and a fresh squeeze of lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve immediately with some crusty sourdough baguette.
Notes
See post for variations and serving suggestions.This recipe can be made in advance.Store in the fridge for up to 4 days. Reheat gently on the stove before serving.