Raw Shrimp

There’s always a lot of hype around the Maine Lobster, but an overlooked and much more tasty (in my opinion) bounty from the sea is the elusive Maine Shrimp.  The season begins in December so I always associate the taste with the Holiday Season and continues on until around April.  Maine shrimp are much smaller than their relatives which makes their meat more sweet and tender.

A family tradition we adopted a couple years ago was to indulge in this treat as our Christmas Eve Meal.  Unfortunately the shrimp boats did not go out in time so we postponed our shrimp-a-thon until Saturday.  When you purchase Maine Shrimp with their head and bodies intact (picture shown above) then you get the amazing price of 99 cents a pound.  For the four or us went with 12 pounds…i know it sounds like a lot but here is a picture of the size of the meat once you shuck it:

We set up the kitchen table for shrimp the same way we do for lobster- butter warmers all around and a giant bowl in the center for all the waste.  Get a big pot of water boiling and cook the shrimp in batches so they are piping hot when you’re ready to eat.  The delicious flavor of the shrimp comes from cooking them in their shells, which also contains a lot of eggs that you have to clean off in the shucking process.  At first I was grossed out by the abundance of eggs on the shrimp but once you have one bite of the meat dipped in butter you can get over it pretty quick.  The shrimp are cooked for only about 3-4 minutes given their small size then you take off the head, peel off the shell and eggs, dip in butter and enjoy.  My technique is slightly different from others- I squeeze some lemon juice in my butter warmer, shuck about 4-6 shrimp and leave them in the hot butter, then eat them out with a fork.  Decadent and delicious are the only words to describe this meal.  A good pairing for this feast is a hearty winter brew- we had a mix of Sam Adams Winter and Rogue Santa’s Private Reserve.

After 12 pounds, everyone around the table has entered a shrimp coma, including my seafood monger cat DeeDee who we make a special plate of about 10 shrimp.  If there’s an extra bowl at the end, my dad will usually shuck them and save for a shrimp roll the following day.  The shrimp bodies are used as compost in my dads garden and I swear we find random shrimp antennae around the kitchen for the next week!  Here’s a picture of the aftermath minus a second bowl that was not pictured: