Cook Perfect Shrimp Tapas-Style with this Recipe for Gambas al Ajillo | America’s Test Kitchen

Today, Christie Morrison makes the Spanish-inspired dish gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp) for Bridget Lancaster, with tips for how to avoid overcooking the shrimp, keeping it tender and juicy while infused with garlicky flavor.

Gambas al Ajillo (Spanish-Style Sizzling Garlic Shrimp): https://cooks.io/4mRACeg

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You’re in for a treat today because we’re making a tapus classic Gambas alaho. Love this dish. What’s not to like? It’s sliced garlic, plump, juicy prawns or shrimp, all bathed in sizzling hot oil. M. Add a little crusty bread and you’ve got a real treat. Speaking of treats, Christiey’s here and she’s going to show us how to make this at home. Well, Bridget, this dish is all about big garlic flavor and sweet, tender shrimp. And these are two items that are notoriously easy to overcook, but we have a protection plan in place to avoid disaster. Fantastic. So, I have 1 and 12 lbs of extra-l large shrimp here. We know that that’s 2125. That means 21 to 25 shrimp per pound, right? I’ve already gone ahead and peeled and de veained most of these. Um, but I left a few just to kind of walk us through that whole process. Great. So, different ways to skin a cat and kind of peel it open from the leg end, the leg part. Yep. Kind of like you would a lobster. And we’re going to take the tails off and then de vain these as well because we’ve got that long tract along the back of the shrimp. You actually see that more with farmed shrimp than you do with wild shrimp. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It’s part of the the diet that they feed them. But we can also use our shrimp scissors instead if you want and trim. Go through the back of the shell and then peel it off that way. When you’re buying shrimp, be sure to buy frozen shrimp. Frozen shrimp are much better because they’re frozen at sea. They actually feel fresher than the stuff that’s already thawed at the supermarket. I promised you that I would keep this shrimp safe and tender and juicy while we cook this. So, the key to doing that is salting it. I have one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt. Now, obviously, this is going to season the shrimp, but what it’s really going to do is help the shrimp hold on to its moisture. So, even when it cooks, it’s going to stay nice and juicy. And this is only going to take about 15 minutes. We’re just going to cover these and I’ll let them sit in the fridge while we wait. Perfect. Bridget, I also promised you big garlic flavor. Sure. Right. So, I have six, count them, six bowls of garlic here. And I’m going to mince these. While we want big garlic flavor, we’re not going to rupture the cells quite as much by mincing them as we would if we pressed them. So, I’ll use my bench scraper. Now, I have 3/4 of a cup of extra virgin olive oil, which sounds like a lot, but this is a tapa, and it’s always served with crusty bread. And so, really, the infused garlic oil is almost as big a draw as the shrimp is. 100%. It’s not just the cooking medium. It’s an ingredient in the dish itself. Right. I am going to turn this to medium low, very low heat. And I’m using a cast iron skillet. This is a 12-in cast iron skillet. It’s going to hold the heat really well, but we’re also going to serve it in this. Is this your insurance? This is part of the insurance. Yes. And the fact that we’re heating the oil and the garlic together. Okay. And bringing it up. We didn’t heat the oil first and then add garlic to that hot oil where it’s so easy to burn in. This way it’s a slow gradual climb. It’s going to take 8 to 10 minutes for the garlic to get to the light golden brown we want. Perfect. But we cannot have this sizzling garlic shrimp without a little kick of heat. So I have some red pepper flakes here. If you want the full effect of this, you need to kick it up to a full teaspoon. All right. So, it’s going to take 8 to 10 minutes to get to the light golden brown color that we want. So, in the meantime, we’ll do the last bit of prep work we need. Great. I have some parsley here that I’ve already taken off the stems cuz we don’t like to eat the stems with parsley. And now I want about half a cup of chopped parsley. And first I’ll slice through it, keeping my knuckles out ahead of my fingers. And then I can rock back and forth. Gotcha. I think that looks like a good half cup for us. So, I’m just going to keep an eye on this garlic. Should be about 5 minutes longer. Okay, great. Okay, Bridget, take a look at this. See what we have are some nice light golden brown pieces of garlic. I’m listening. And we want to capture them here before they go further because we’re going to keep cooking this. And we’re going to add the shrimp. Got it. This is our 15minute chilled salted shrimp. So, I’m just going to spread this out. Now, adding the shrimp to the pan is going to cool the oil a bit. So, that’s going to protect the garlic, keep them from overcooking, and it’s also going to lower the temperature so the shrimp don’t cook too quickly. We’re looking for pink bottoms. So, 2 minutes on each side, about four minutes total. All right, Bridget. I think we are just about here. I hope here is done. Well, and you know that there will be carryover cooking, too, because we still have this hot oil. So, even when we take it off the heat, they will continue to cook through a little bit more. So, it’s always good to catch it before it goes too far. And notice the shrimp haven’t curled up that much, which is a good sign. They shouldn’t curl too much. There are really tight little seas. You’ve overcooked the shrimp. These look really nice. All right, so we are going to bring this right onto a trivet. The only thing we’re going to do, I’m going to keep a little towel over the handle. And now we’ll sprinkle it with the parsley that we chopped just to give it a bright fresh pop, some color, some fresh flavor. My goodness. You know, I usually see this dish in the little little ceramic crocs that come out to the table. I’m actually really excited. I mean, I use that cast iron skillet for everything. Never thought of it for this dish. It’s going to stay hotter longer if you keep it in this. I’m not going to skimp on the oil. Thank you. All right. Shall we? We shall bright but deep burst of garlic flavor. It’s still really bright though. It’s almost more along the roasted garlic. It’s not as sharp as sauteed garlic can be. For full episodes of your favorite cooking shows, head over to ATK’s full episodes channel on YouTube. You can stream complete seasons of America’s Test Kitchen, Cooks Country, and more. See you there.