Wonderful Shrimp Pasta (Whitney)

I live on the Ecuadorian coast, so seafood is plentiful.  Sometimes TOO plentiful for those of us who have never been crazy about how much work it is to eat crab legs, or how shells still look like dirt even after they’ve been cleaned.  But shrimp I love.  I always have.  It’s so good, and good for you!  So when a friend from church gave my husband a bag of fresh collected shrimp from a local shrimp farm, I was excited.  Except for one thing: the shrimp came whole (obviously) and it was quite a chore to get them to the point where I could cook them.

I now understand why shrimp are so expensive.  After about an hour of removing legs, tails, heads, shells, and the veins, I was finally ready to get started. 

 

I love looking for recipes online, but I never stick with just one.  I typically do a google search for what I want (in this case “breaded shrimp”) and click on three that interest me.  I then compare the recipes and usually end up making up my own variations.

Most recipes started the same way.  After cleaning and drying the shrimp, dip them in an egg and milk mixture.

Most sites recommended letting the shrimp sit there for a few minutes, so I threw in 5 or 7 at a time and let the last ones sit there while I worked on breading the first ones.

The breading depends on what you have on hand, or what you like.  Some people like super crunchy crusts, so crumbled corn flakes are the answer.  I didn’t have anything like that, so I mixed some bread crumbs with some cornmeal with some flour and added some spices.  I like spicy things, so I added a lot of spice (or you could take the easy route and buy a pre-packaged breading mix).

Then you bread the shrimp one by one.

This is more or less how they look when they come out.  At this point, I let my wonderful husband take care of the frying.  We make quite a team in the kitchen.

When he’s done frying them (it only takes 3-5 minutes per shrimp), they come out looking like this:  amazing.

Once Adam is done will all of the shrimp, it’s my turn again.  I figured the pasta that I had planned on putting on the side could use a sauce, and what better flavor for a sauce than shrimp!  So with the little leftover oil, I mixed in the leftover breading to thicken up the beginnings of the sauce.  That way the flavor is consistent.  Once the breading has soaked up the oil, I add in the milk/eggs mixture (which at this point, is mostly milk).  After it gets to a boiling point, I determine whether or not more milk is needed based on the consistency I want.  At the end, I add some cheese and maybe some extra salt.  It turned out to be the best thing we have made in Ecuador.

The shrimp was so fresh it was almost sweet.  The pasta was the perfect flavor.  It was truly delicious.  Try it!