Andalusia · 25 min · Fish · Starter · For confident cooks
Gambas al Ajillo
In German: Knoblauchgarnelen · In English: Garlic Shrimp
For 4 servings · US units
Shrimp sizzled in garlic oil with chilli, paprika and parsley — ready in 25 minutes
Few tapas come together faster or taste like more: big shrimp sizzling for just a couple of minutes in plenty of olive oil with garlic and chilli. The oil isn't a frying medium here, it's half the dish — which is why the pan goes straight to the table with white bread for dipping. An Andalusian plate for any time of year, best eaten by several people out of the middle.
Ingredients
- 1⅓ lbprawnslarge, raw, peeled and deveined, patted dry
- 6 clovesgarlicthinly sliced or chopped
- ½ cupolive oilfor frying, served as garlic oil
- 1Chili pepperdeseeded and chopped; or chili flakes
- 1 tspPaprika powdersweet or smoked
- saltfor seasoning
- pepperfreshly ground
- 2 tbspLemon juiceto finish
- 1 bunchparsleycoarsely chopped, for scattering
- 2 tbspfor deglazing, instead of or alongside lemon juice (optional)Vinegar made from sherry and aged in casks around Jerez in Andalusia, rounder, nuttier and deeper than ordinary wine vinegar.Substitute: Good red wine vinegar, ideally with a few drops of dry sherry, comes closest but stays sharper and flatter. Balsamic is too sweet and darkens the dish, so it noticeably changes gazpacho and vinaigrettes.Read more
- 2bay leafcooked along to flavor the oil (optional)
- White breadfor dipping into the garlic oil (optional)
Method
- Peel the shrimp, score them along the back, lift out the dark vein, rinse briefly and pat them thoroughly dry — dry shrimp sear, wet ones steam in the oil.
- Peel the garlic and slice it thinly or chop it. Halve the chilli, scrape out the seeds and chop it finely; chilli flakes work just as well.
- Season the shrimp with salt, pepper and paprika. If you like, add some of the garlic now and let everything sit for a few minutes to take on the flavour.
- Heat the olive oil in a wide pan. Add the garlic and chilli — along with the bay leaves if you're using them — and stir for about 1 minute, until fragrant. Don't let the garlic take on colour or it will turn bitter.
- Add the shrimp and fry for 2 to 4 minutes, turning them, until they curl into a C and are just opaque through the middle.
- Deglaze with the lemon juice or sherry vinegar, swirl the pan once to bring everything together, and season with salt and pepper. Lift out the bay leaves before serving.
- Scatter over the chopped flat-leaf parsley and serve straight away in the hot pan, with white bread for mopping up the garlic oil.
Tips and variations
There's more than one route to the same pan: marinate the shrimp for several hours in garlic, lemon and paprika and fry them only afterwards, or simmer the shells with rosé wine, bay and peppercorns into a broth and finish the shrimp in it. The oven works too — cook marinated shrimp with slices of chorizo, green olives, orange zest and rosemary at around 175 °C. For more flavour and more fun at the table, fry the shrimp with their tail fins on or fully in the shell, and grate part of the garlic finely into the seasoning while the rest goes into the oil in slices. Served as a main course, a leaf salad of romaine, tomato and onion rounds it out — and plenty of bread, always.
Allergens
Contains: Crustaceans
May contain if you use the optional ingredients: Cereals containing gluten, Sulphur dioxide and sulphites
These notes follow from this recipe's ingredient list. Ready-made products and brands may contain further allergens — please check the packaging yourself.
Something not right?
This recipe was put together from independent sources and checked before publishing. Even so, a mistake can slip through — an amount that does not add up, a step that does not work as written. If you spot something, write to us: we will look into it and put it right.
