Go to the Recipe: Perfect Shrimp Scampi
Thank you so much for the feedback—and I’m glad you enjoyed it!
And honestly, if you find the heads a little too intense in the sauce, using just the shells is a great adjustment. You’ll still get plenty of shrimp flavor, and it should make sourcing a little easier and less expensive if you make it again.
As for the shrimp weight, great catch. I went back through my notes, and there was a mistake on our end. I was actually getting about 300 g of cleaned shrimp, not 400 g. Thank you for bringing that to our attention!
The difference between your 200 g and my 300 g likely comes down to the size of the shrimp and the proportion of head and shell weight. Either way, 400 g was incorrect, and we’ll get that fixed.
You guys are great!! I made this today, excellent!!! I did adjust step 5: I only blended the shells. I removed the heads after cooking them. They're too "fishy" for my taste lol. I'm such a baby. I do have a question. After removing the heads and shells from 455g of shrimp, I was not even close to 400g of cleaned shrimp. I was at just 200g. How did you guys get 400g of cleaned shrimp?
Cook some jasmine rice, added the leftover sauce and shrimp and reheated it on a control freak to 160℉ and it was the best hybrid risotto I have ever made.
Yep Longview! I'll check in Asian markets in Portland next time I'm down there. I actually have a boatload of shell-on tails (I'm the guy who got all the spot prawns recently), but their heads rot their bodies so quickly that I had to de-head them on the boat! So I'm really in the market for frozen shrimp heads I guess.
I share the same love for video as you do. We would love to make videos for every recipe and step but time, money, and the fact that we are a small team gets in the way. If you have a question about a recipe we're happy to help you out.
That size shrimp will likely be in the freezer aisle in a box if you can find it. Do you have an asian supermarkets? I'm guessing you're down around Longview?
I know the size of colossal shrimp is epic and great to eat but I love this recipe for the sauce. If you can find any good quality shrimp even jumbo with heads on I would just make it with that instead of going through the hassle of driving from colassal.
Glad to hear it worked out well! Good call out with the shrimp sizing if the intent is to serve with pasta.
Sorry for the tricky blending part. How did it turn out in the end?
Thank you for the kind feedback! Take that Trader Joe's bisque soup. "60% of the time, my recipes work every time," Anchor man + me
We use two immersion blenders in the studio kitchen. In the photos I'm using the "The Control Grip" . It says it has "15 speed settings" but thats kinda BS. We only use it as low, medium and high speed. The other immersion blender I use is often is the Bamix® Classic. This one comes with two speeds and it's my go to.
You made my Monday! Thank you for reporting back. I like your wife's style, I'm going to do that next time. Makes a TON of sense.
Where can I find the video that helps me learn better with real talking and demonstrations? It is called GUIDED DISCOVERY. Please make more videos. Pictures are nice, but video is professional
Completed this recipe today, no pasta and it was fantastic. My wife said she would serve it with rice to help soak up the sauce and even out that intense flavor.
Yeah, I also want to know :)
Do yall have general guidance on where to find super-colossal shrimp? I live in SW WA (about 40 min N of Portland), but also have family in Seattle and visit them sometimes.
It was a success! Would have had nicer color and flavor if I'd been able to find head-on shrimp but they are not readily available in my neck of the woods. The only note I'd suggest adding to the recipe is that if you're doing the pasta version of this, it's not really worth spending the extra money for huge shrimp as you're just going to be cutting them smaller anyway.
Let us know how dinner turned out!
The Breville one has lots of speeds.
My butter didn't emulsify very nicely at all in step six. Sauce was very thick and grainy after a solid immersion blend on high. Pretty sure the problem was that the sauce had cooled down too much after I took it off the heat and the butter was coldish. It all worked out fine in the end. Just stirred regularly as I brought it up to 160F and eventually the butter melted enough and the sauce warmed enough that it all came together. It's currently holding at 155F and I'll toss the shrimp in and turn it into dinner in a couple hours.
I really love Shrimp Scampi and pasta, so I made this dish yesterday verbatim. The only change I made was that I didn't want to use as much shrimp since I was serving two, so I scaled it to 70%. It turned out very well. It was super shrimp-y and intense. My warning is that you really better love shellfish/shrimp because the flavor is really intensified - a plus for me. While I was eating it, I couldn't quite put my finger on why it tasted so familiar. And then it hit me - it tastes very similar to the lobster bisque soup from Trader Joe's. What's funny is there was a viral trend where people took the bisque and mixed it with other ingredients, including pasta and Argentinian shrimp, to create a pasta dish. I made that dish and didn't care for it, but thinking back, this recipe is nearly the same thing, with two exceptions: 1) the sauce/stock is much better here, and 2) it doesn't have the extras the viral recipe has, like cherry tomatoes, basil, etc.
This recipe was honestly a lot of work, and the lobster bisque flavor is 85% of what you get from cooking down shrimp shells with aromatics, wine, and butter. I think using lobster bisque, poaching Argentinian shrimp (better texture, tastes like poor man's lobster), and finishing the pasta in the bisque might get you 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort.
What immersion blender do y’all use? Mine has only one speed…
Interesting for sure. Love Shrimp scampi and looking forward to giving this one try.
