Blackened Shrimp is an excellent way to prepare shrimp. While not truly blackened, the recipe does make use of the late chef Paul Prudhomme’s famous Blackened Redfish Magic Spice Blend.
Jumbo shrimp are cleaned, peeled, and coated with Blackening Seasoning, then lightly fried in butter until cooked through. The shrimp take on a pleasing reddish color, and a spicy delicious flavor. It is so easy to make, I think you will love it! It pairs nicely with Rice Dressing, a.k.a Dirty Rice.
Blackened Shrimp Recipe
Blackened Shrimp
Equipment
- small skillet
- tongs
Ingredients
- 1 pound jumbo shrimp – peeled and deveined
- 4 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp Blackening Seasoning
Instructions
- Peel and pat dry the shrimp, then add them to a dish.1 pound jumbo shrimp
- In a small skillet, melt the butter over low heat.4 tbsp butter
- Using a basting brush, use some of the melted butter to brush the tops of the shrimp. Apply a generous sprinkling of Blackening Seasoning. Using tongs, carefully turn the shrimp over. Baste and season the other side.2 tbsp Blackening Seasoning
- Turn up the heat on the pan to medium-high. Add shrimp in one layer, keeping space between each shrimp.
- Cook for about 2 minutes, then turn the shrimp and cook for about 2 minutes more. The shrimp is done when it turns pink and slightly opaque.
PRIVATE NOTES
Nutrition
More Information
About the shrimping industry
I owned a vacation house on Carancahua Bay, near Palacios, Texas. Palacios had a ship harbor, where the Texas grocery chain, H-E-B kept part of their shrimp boat fleet. H-E-B is known for their high quality grocery products. H-E-B would partner with Texas Gulf shrimpers to harvest, inspect, and transport wild-caught gulf shrimp straight from the sea to stores all over Texas. It was an impressive operation! Sometimes I would launch my fishing boat from the same harbor. I shopped at H-E-B, so it made me feel good to see them in operation.
Farm Raised vs Wild Caught Shrimp
In the wild, shrimp feed on small sea creatures and plankton. They are caught in bays, estuaries, and further out to sea. Commercial fishing for wild-caught shrimp is mostly done with dragging big nets hanging from booms on fishing ships called trawlers. Wild caught shrimp are generally considered to have superior flavor than their farm-raised cousins.
Farm-raised shrimp feed on fishmeal, and other controlled feeds. This can affect their flavor and texture. They are generally less expensive than wild-caught, but the flavor suffers because of how they are raised and processed.
The spices in Blackened Shrimp are more than enough to compensate for the subtle differences in flavor between wild-caught, and farm-raised shrimp. If you can’t find fresh shrimp where you live, you might be able to find IQF (Individual Quick Frozen) shrimp in the frozen seafood section of your grocery store. These are pretty good, too.
This article from Wild American Seafood does a good job of explaining the difference between these shrimp harvesting methods.
Old Cajun Method of Catching Shrimp
An old Cajun fisherman near Lake Calcasieu, Louisiana told me a story about how his paw-paw would catch shrimp with a cast-net and a pirogue. A pirogue is a kind of shallow boat, similar to a canoe. Fishermen would stand in the boat, and use a long pole to push the boat along the shallow water.
He would leave out on his pirogue in the morning with a cast net, some long canes, and a bucket of dried shrimp shells. They would collect the shells when cleaning shrimp the day before, and leave them out to dry in the sun. Then they could be used as bait the next day — to catch more shrimp!
The fisherman would look for pink spoonbill birds walking along the reed-lines in the shallow bayous. These birds are normally white, but when they are eating a lot of shrimp, their feathers would turn pink. If you could spot pink colored spoonbills, you could be sure that there were lots of shrimp in the water.
He would put a stake into the mud, then poll down the reed-line about 50 yards, scooping out shrimp shells and tossing them in the water as he went. Another stake would be pushed into the mud at the end of the run. This pattern was repeated in several sections as he polled down the bayou.
He would then return to the beginning of the run, polling down through each section again. This time, he would throw his cast-net, hauling up net-loads of shrimp in each cast, emptying them back into his bucket.
The amazing thing was that the live shrimp seemed to be attracted to the scent of the dried shells, which made them easy to catch with a net! Those early Cajuns were a clever bunch, to be sure.
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