This Whiskey Shrimp has so many layers of flavour your guests will never guess you whipped it up in less than 30 minutes. You can make your sauce decadent with real cream or healthy with Greek yogurt.
For easy, quick preparation, use peeled and deveined shrimp. I love Costco for their shrimp varieties. You can get large, jumbo, peeled, raw, not peeled -pretty much any configuration you might want.
There are quite a few ingredients to this dish but they are all things you would commonly have in your kitchen.
The recipe calls for Scotch whiskey but you could substitute rye whisky or Irish whiskey as well. There is an important step. It burns off the alcohol and mellows out the flavour. I have to admit I have a strong aversion to Scotch whiskey and Rye whiskey but after burning off the alcohol you would not be able to put your finger on what that flavour is. It adds a depth to the dish without overpowering it. Don't skip the flambéing step!
I like to use a long BBQ type lighter to ignite the whiskey but a long match or other type of lighter will also do the trick. You need to light the scotch very quickly after adding so it doesn't dissipate throughout the dish's liquid.
Start your pasta or rice on the side before you start the shrimp dish and it should all be ready pretty much at the same time.
I served this over this Pumpkin Pasta and it was delicious. The pumpkin pasta has a savoury flavour. You can't quite put your finger on what it is. That was a good thing because my husband had already declared how much he liked it before he knew there was pumpkin involved!
You could buy a flavoured pasta in a deli that would also make it very easy for elegant entertaining. Some of that black, squid ink pasta might be fun.....I know what I am trying next!
Whiskey Shrimp
Ingredients
- 1 lb large shrimp peeled and deveined
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 Tbsps butter
- 1 medium yellow onion chopped
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 pinch dried thyme
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ cup Scotch Whiskey
- ½ cup dry white wine
- ½ cup chicken stock
- ¼ cup whipping cream or substitute no fat Greek Yogurt
- 2 tablespoon parsley choppped optional
- 2 Tbsps chives chopped optional
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
Instructions
- Heat oil and butter in a skillet over medium high heat.
- Sauté onion about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 more minute.
- Add thyme, shrimp and salt and pepper. Cook about 3 minutes, stirring. Shrimp should just be turning pink.
- Pour scotch whiskey over the shrimp and ignite. Shake the skillet til the flames subside. Remove shrimp from skillet and set aside.
- Dissolve 1 tablespoon corn starch in just enough of the chicken stock to make a pourable paste. Add white wine and remaining chicken stock to the skillet and boil until reduce by half. This should take 3-5 minutes.
- Add the corn starch slurry and stir until well mixed. Add whipping cream (or greek yogurt) and heat through while stirring. Return shrimp to the pan to reheat about 3 minutes more until shrimp is reheated and sauce has thickened.
- Transfer shrimp to serving dish with sauce and garnish. Serve over rice or pasta.
Leave a Reply