Here is the easiest way I’ve ever found to prepare shrimp. And, even better, it’s a delicious dinner, just as good for serving to guests as it is for a quiet meal alone. Yes, it’s true that cooking shortcuts can sometimes lead to disaster, but in this case (and many others), it’s the tasty path to success.
One way to streamline a recipe is to skip the first two steps (but always use your best judgment when doing so). The original recipe, from Cooking Light, suggested serving the shrimp with orzo. Orzo can get pretty expensive, which I don’t understand—can someone explain why this pasta-rice hybrid costs so much more than pasta or rice? Anyways, the thought crossed my mind that I could just serve it on rice, but I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe we’d already had a lot of other rice dishes lately. So I skipped that step.
Next up in the recipe was cooking the shrimp. You can get around this by buying the shrimp pre-cooked. Then it’s just as simple as defrosting the shrimp, removing the tails (I know some people leave them on—for flavor, I guess?—but I always remove them because it’s easier to do that in prep than when you’re trying to eat your dinner), and adding them to a pan of melted butter. If you have raw shrimp, then it’s not much more of a step to cook them; it just adds a bit more time to the recipe. I bought cooked shrimp at the local grocery, so I skipped that step, too.
What was left of the recipe at this point was melting a tablespoon of butter, adding garlic, then shrimp, lemon juice, and black pepper. In case you were not aware, a lemon-butter sauce does wonders for shrimp, just like it does with other seafood (lobster and clams come to mind first). The pepper adds a bit of bite, balancing out the silky butter; the pepper spice and citrus zing don’t overwhelm, they just contribute the best flavors of ingredients that seem made to liven up the humble shrimp.
The shrimp need an accompaniment to be a full meal, so I served them with a spinach, chickpea, and mozzarella salad. You could also serve them on rice (or orzo, if that’s in your budget), pasta, roasted veggies…whatever you do, it will be one of the best shortcuts you’ve ever taken.
Lemon-Pepper Shrimp Scampi
Adapted from Cooking Light
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 pound cooked shrimp, tails removed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ teaspoon black pepper
- Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds or until it just starts to brown, stirring often.
- Add the shrimp, lemon juice, and black pepper to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp are heated through.
The Food Beat 