Rubbery shrimp aren't bad shrimp: they're shrimp that cooked too long, often by barely thirty seconds. They take three or four minutes in total, and it all comes down to three details.
Thaw and dry
Most raw shrimp are sold frozen. Thaw them in the fridge overnight, or faster in a bowl of cold water, bag sealed, for about twenty minutes. Never in hot water: the outside starts to cook.
Then dry them properly, spread on paper towel, patting the tops. Wet shrimp don't brown: they boil in their own water and turn grey and soft.
Peeled or not? Peeled, they take the sauce better. Shell-on, they stay juicier and gain flavour. Either way, remove the little dark vein along the back if you can see it.
The cook, for 300 g
- Empty pan, high heat, 2 minutes, until the water drop test works. Then a spoon of neutral oil.
- Salt the shrimp just before, and lay them in a single layer, not touching. If the pan is too small, cook in two batches: crowded, they release their water together and boil.
- Leave them alone for 1 to 2 minutes, until the underside is pink and golden. They release by themselves when ready.
- Flip, 1 minute on the other side.
- Take them out straight away onto a plate. In the hot pan, they keep cooking.
The cue: the shape of the letter
A raw shrimp is straight. Cooked just right, it curls into a C, and the flesh is opaque all the way through. If it closes into a tight O, it's overcooked.
Garlic butter sauce, in 30 seconds
Shrimp out, medium heat: a knob of butter, a sliced garlic clove, fifteen seconds. A splash of white wine or lemon juice, scrape the base with a wooden spoon, then return the shrimp to coat them. Parsley or chilli if you like.
It's the same method as every pan sauce — deglazing: a sauce in 30 seconds. For fish, the sauce chart gives other pairings, and the 10 pan sauces in 3 minutes booklet has exact quantities for ten of them.
The three mistakes
Overcooked. The most common. Three to four minutes in total is enough for medium shrimp: take them out as soon as they're opaque.
Wet. They stay grey and leave water in the pan.
Crowded. The pan cools all at once, and they steam instead of browning.
What to serve them with
Rice, garlic pasta, a salad, or with a cod fillet for a seafood plate. For scallops the method is close but even faster: the golden crust in two minutes.
High heat and a fond for the sauce are what a stainless pan does best. The pan we film with is 304 stainless with no coating, with the 25-recipe book free.
