It's been a while since I made a huge skillet of shrimp
one of life's greatest pleasures
Hello and welcome to Home Movies Tuesday! If you’ve found your way over by some miracle but are not yet subscribed, here, let me help you with that:
Hello Home Movies friends, welcome to Home Movies Tuesday. It feels like everyone is out of town on some fabulous European vacation, but not me and my large skillet of shrimp in the shell. We’re in New York, sweating it out, traipsing between Brooklyn and The Catskills, the Paris and Puglia of New York, respectively.
I’ve been half-watching the Olympics and eating a ridiculous amount of fruit these days (good year for stone fruit in New York, doesn’t happen often), in between making pasta with whatever vegetables are making themselves available to me (right now, all of them). I have it in me to make a full, vaguely proper, elaborate dinner maybe once a week, and the rest of the time it’s more like popcorn and hunks of cheese and maybe a popsicle for dessert (to be eaten in bed). As mentioned, I’m in the thick of making another book, so a lot of my time and attention is devoted to that, especially my cooking bandwidth.
When I feel like this, it’s nice to be reminded that a skillet of shrimp is always there for me. For you, for us. They always feel special somehow (especially if you can find head-on shrimp or prawns), like you’re either at a party or on vacation and as someone who has made a skillet of shrimp for both a party and while on vacation, this tracks. It’s one of the more relaxed things you can make (i.e. sauté some things— garlic, lemon slices, harissa paste—, add some shrimp, squeeze some lemon, etc.) that takes a true 30-minutes or less, can somehow be dinner for two or the start of a party for six to eight.
Peel and eat shrimp are obviously a long-standing tradition in lots of places, and for good reason: They’re delicious of course, but they’re also fun, giving the eater a fun, sensual, messy, casual dining experience. You can not underestimate what cooking the shrimp in the shells will do for flavor and texture (I eat the shells and you should at least try this), but also visual appeal (I really do hate a weird curly pale peeled shrimp, sorry).
The point of this shrimp for dinner is the shrimp. That’s it. The quick cooking, the long, lingering eating. A good crusty baguette (in my area of Brooklyn, I like La Bicyclette, L’Appartment, Bien Cuit and She Wolf at the market) is good for dragging through the skillet after you’ve eaten your shrimp or nibbling on between bites of some sort of almost-too-crisp white wine. A big bowl of arugula dressed with lemon and flaky salt would be my other choice of things to have on the table, grabbing pinches of leaves to shovel into your mouth between sucking the shrimp shells of their goods (the tiny legs where lots of the harissa-butter gets trapped are my favorite little bits).
Thank you to SKIMS for sponsoring this episode of Home Movies! I’ve been a long time wearer of SKIMS so am especially thrilled to have them a part of the Home Movies cinematic advertorial universe. In the ad, I’m wearing the Fits Everybody triangle bralette in onyx (since getting this one, I’ve ordered two more). Shop the Fits Everybody collection here.
For the full recipe, read on.
Director: Doron Max Hagay / Producer: Graham Mason / Photography Director: Alex Bliss / Audio: Yves Albaret
Camera Operator: Daniel Rampulla / Camera Operator: Will Colacito / Editor: Maya Tippett / Graphics: Gordon Landenberger
Spicy Shrimp in Harissa Butter
Serves 4–6
I’m a huge advocate for cooking shell-on shrimp. I like the fact that you can eat the shell (yes, the whole thing) or just peel the shell with your hand. I like that, if you’re lucky to find the shrimp with the heads, you can suck all the juices out and get a little messy, and I want you to like all of that too. These shrimp are deceptively flavorful and complex: spicy (thanks to harissa paste), lemony (thanks to whole, sliced lemon caramelized in the pan), and buttery (thanks to butter). Serve it with a crusty baguette to tear and sop up the sauce, some quick-dressed peppery arugula, and a cold white wine. This whole thing comes together in a true 30 minutes or less, which I like for those nights where doing anything more feels truly impossible.
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 large cloves garlic, or 1 shallot, or ½ red onion, thinly sliced
1 lemon, half thinly sliced, half for squeezing over
2–4 tablespoons harissa paste* or gochujang, depending on the paste and your heat tolerance
1 ½–2 pounds shell-on shrimp, or peeled shrimp
2–4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 baguette, sliced, torn and/or toasted, to serve
1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally until the slivers are nicely golden (but not too dark), 2–3 minutes. Add lemon slices and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally until they’ve also started to turn a nice golden brown and frizzle at the edges, 3–4 minutes.
2. Add harissa paste and cook a minute or two in the oil, frying the spices and caramelizing the paste to take the edge off. Add shrimp and a few tablespoons of butter (I think more is better here) and season with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing until the shrimp are nicely coated, have turned a deep, bright pink, and are noticeably firmer, 4-6 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, squeeze the other half of lemon over the shrimp, and toss to combine before transferring it to a platter. Serve it with baguette to sop up the sauce and a bowl for anyone not eating their shells.
*Harissa paste, a North African condiment made with chili and spices like cumin and coriander, can be radically different depending on the brand, the ingredients and where it comes from. Some are almost pure chili (lots of heat), some extremely mild, containing ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes or roasted red peppers for body and sweetness. My preference is to always have two types on hand for different applications, but if I had to choose one, it would be one with more heat than sweetness.
I like this harissa paste for the heat, I like this or this harissa paste for the flavor.
I’m wearing this Sézane shirt in this episode of Home Movies.
I use this tube of harissa—as I say in the video, be sure to taste the harissa you’re using before you cook with it to get an understanding of just how spicy it is.
And these are the earrings I’m wearing in the video.
the peaches at the market this year HAVE been good.
Surely you're not serious about eating the shells!!!