- Americans love shrimp.
We eat way more of
those little critters
than any other seafood.
And that's OK.
Shrimp are plentiful.
They're relatively healthy.
But most of us have a
relatively low shrimp-Q.
There are hundreds of varieties,
white, brown, rock, pink.
Shrimp are highly perishable.
So if I'm going to use
them in a dish like, say,
a pasta or a stir
fry, where they're
going to be team
players, I tend to use
what's called IQF shrimp.
That means Individually
Quick Frozen.
They're a heck of a lot
easier to portion out.
Why?
Because they're in a bag.
You can just reach in
and count them, 1, 2, 3.
If you do, however,
prefer fresh shrimp,
here's a couple of rules.
Always buy them head on.
The head can tell you a
lot about the freshness.
For instance, if there are
black spots on the head,
you should maybe have
chicken that night.
Also, fresh shrimp will
never smell even a little
like ammonia.
My general rule, I
only buy fresh shrimp
if I'm about 25
miles from the ocean,
because otherwise, they were
probably frozen and thawed.
And I'd rather be the
one to do the thawing.
