The Best Way to Make Perfect Shrimp Scampi at Home

[Music] today we're not sauteing any shrimp which is a pretty remarkable statement when you consider that we're about to make shrimp scampi because if you look up this recipe in nearly any cookbook you'll find the same set of instructions saute some shrimp then make a quick garlic and butter sauce but that will net you this which is overcook shrimp a broken sauce that's greasy on top and has an overpowering garlic flavor but today Ella's gonna show us a better way to make this classic dish yes we've made 50 pounds of shrimp you cooked 50 pounds of shrimp to get this recipe right until we got it right are you crazy a little first of all we have to start with the right kind of shrimp we have here one and a half pound of shrimp and this is enough to feed about four people we use jumbo shrimp the big guys the big guys mostly because it's less shrimps appeal and a start from the bottom here on the Swimming legs mm-hmm and it's always better to start peeling from the bottom to the top that's how we reach success always starting from the bottom right okay so we're saving these shells too by the way yeah I noticed that so it's always best to make sure that when you're buying shrimp that you buy shrimp that is not treated with added salt or preservatives that's very important we've reached my favorite part of this recipe all right it's what I call it three two one step so we're gonna brine the shrimp in three tablespoons salt 2 tablespoons sugar into 1 quart of water to 1 and we're gonna whisk just to dissolve and so this brine is going to preserve the flavor of the shrimp and the sugar in it is gonna add to the shrimp some natural sweetness okay yeah I'm gonna add the shrimp in here no we have to brine the shrimp for a long time no not at all we're all they're gonna brine it for about 15 minutes in the fridge covered Julie our shrimp is out of the brine look at that we're gonna just give it a few Pat's to dry it off I'm gonna set it aside we've also started 1 tbsp of oil in our pan on high heat just to the oil is simmering we're gonna use our shrimp shells to create a stock we're doing this because shrimp is self cooked in such a short time does not land a lot of flavor to the dish so we're gonna create that flavor we want the shrimp shells to start spotting a little we see some white spots we see some brown spots happening there when you start to see that happening prominently in the pan we know we're ready to move on to the next step okay I see it's predominantly brown in that pan so we're gonna remove it from the heat and we're gonna start to create the base for our stock we have one cup of white wine and add four sprigs of thyme and now I see why you did that off the heat so you didn't catch fire in the hole' scale absolutely I like my eyelashes originally we're gonna return this to the heat we're gonna turn it back on so it can simmer so we've tested this shrimp stock at five minutes and up to thirty minutes and we found that five minutes is all the time that we need to get these shrimp shells to give us all the flavor they have the fact that you only need to simmer the shrimp stock for five minutes is pretty interesting when you consider that other types of stocks take chicken stock for example require hours of simmering time in order to extract all the flavor from the bones now the reason for this is because of their flavor compounds the flavors and chicken broth are stable they're not going to go anywhere during that long cooking time the flavor compounds and shrimp however are volatile and they're eager to escape out of the pan so limiting this simmering time in the shrimp stock to just five minutes means that more of the shrimp flavor stays in the pan Julie it's been five minutes it's time for us to pour our stock out we're gonna strain it here oh and I'm gonna press these shells cuz we got liquid gold in there that is liquid go this now has a very strong shrimp aroma all right so the next step to building the base of our scampi sauce is starting with my favorite ingredient garlic Oh mine too I'm gonna slice this garlic because minced garlic has a tendency to give our sauce a gritty taste slicing is more mild because it creates less surface area exposed so you can control the flavor of your garlic with your knife so that looks like a lot of garlic now how much garlic is that it is a lot of garlic it's actually eight cloves of garlic but because we're slicing instead of mincing it gives us an opportunity to bump up that garlic flavor okay so I'm gonna wipe out the skillet I'm not taking it all the way but just the muckety-muck we're gonna heat one tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat we know the pan is ready when the oil starts to shimmer let's go in with our eight cloves of garlic oh that is one of my all-time favorite smells when the garlic just hits the pan and you get that initial waft oh yeah so we're gonna add half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper mmm a little heat a little heat so I'm just gonna give this a little stir to make sure that all the clothes are covered in oil three to five minutes and until the garlic starts to brown around the edges all right Julia this is our liquid gold in our shrimp stock so just so you know that was about two-thirds cup of stock we produced there that smells amazing yeah the smell is getting better and better because before it was a nice simple shrimp aroma now it's garlic and shrimp and a little bit of spice so we're gonna go in with our shrimp and this is poaching you know as we decided we weren't sauteing we're gonna poach this shrimp because it's gonna retain the moisture in the shrimp and we're gonna get all the flavors from this great stock we made no this is kind of a big deal because as I mentioned earlier you look up any recipe for shrimp scampi and it's just sauteed which turns them dry and rubbery but by poaching the shrimp you're actually keeping them moist so they'll have some good texture we have shrimp control the shrimp are under control all right so we're gonna cook this shrimp for about five minutes we're gonna cover it with the lid so that they cook in unison and we'll come back and visit it and stir it a couple of times Julia I believe our shrimp is ready literally how can we tell mm-hmm the first thing is to check your shrimp and see if it's opaque once it's all pagan color we know we're ready I'm gonna remove the shrimp from the pan we're gonna start our scampi sauce we want the sauce to be silky and emulsified so we're going to do that by adding three tablespoons of lemon juice to a mere teaspoon of cornstarch now we've tested flour we tested pectin we tested gelatin and we found that just this one teaspoon of cornstarch with this lemon juice works like magic so we're gonna return our sauce to a medium heat we're gonna add our binder we're gonna let this cook for about a minute and during that time we should start to see the sauce thickening so taking this pan off the heat and we're gonna add four tablespoons of cold butter mmm I was wondering when the butter was gonna come into the sauce oh yeah we're gonna whisk that in and we're also gonna add a tablespoon of chopped parsley and thanks to that cornstarch the butter in the sauce is gonna stay nicely emulsified and not separate out into that greasy layer that sauce went from looking fairly terrible to pretty terrific in about a minute we're ready to add the shrimp oh that looks amazing it's not sure everyday it's shrimp scampi yeah now you gonna make me wait any longer can we taste this no I think we can taste good so do you want a lot of shrimp or a little bit of shrimp what do you think I mean what are you gonna have I'm gonna have like and do not be shy with this sauce I will not at all so I'm gonna finish this off with a nice bright ray of lemon it tastes as good as it looks wrong mm-hmm these shrimp are so tender they're not at all rubbery in fact they almost have a silky consistency well we had a lot of shrimp control so I think we can pat ourselves on the back for that and that sauce has layers of flavor with the shrimp kick at the end and that smooth garlic flavor that's not at all gritty not at all and it's not over oily you know just nice and evenly balanced for the ultimate shrimp scampi we used one and a half pounds of untreated jumbo shrimp and we didn't saute them instead we sauteed their shells before making a quick five-minute shrimp broth and to bring that harsh garlic flavor under control we sliced not minced too close and sauteed them along with a few other aromatics before building a sauce finally we poached the shrimp right in the sauce so that they cook through evenly and took on a tender supple texture there you have it from the Test Kitchen to your kitchen the ultimate recipe for shrimp scampi thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can 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Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 1,095,244

Rating: 4.9018917 out of 5

Keywords: shrimp scampi, shrimp scampi recipe, shrimp recipe, seafood, shellfish, how to cook shrimp, how to makes shrimp scampi, shrimp recipes, recipe, americas test kitchen, america's test kitchen

Id: 95ADdCHqQFU

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 07 2019