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grilled shrimp with thousand island dressing

If you love sea foods or a seafood fanatic like me, then you are bound to love shrimps / prawns, both are same except few genetic differences but when you are going to cook them, it hardly matters. Seafood are enjoyed best when they are live (as in crabs) or fresh, so it is better to cook them in the same day, but if you are using the frozen ones, then thaw them and rinse them in lukewarm salted water to get rid off that fishy smell.

The cut or style of shrimps / prawns that you are going to use varies from cuisine and culture. Indian preparations of gravy or curry demands the heads to be intact while the tails can be chopped off, but if you are going to tandoor -ed them, or in grilling and roasting keeping the tails is a must then, heads can be discarded. Like in the shrimp cocktail, the tail adds the beauty to the dish and even in butterfly – ed prawns.

This recipe of grilling the shrimps is again inspired from Ina Garten, one of my favourite chef in foodnetwork show, and she has flavoured it mildly and presented it with thousand island dressing, which is actually new to me, I have never used this as a dip to serve the shrimps, but I found these absolutely delightful. For the shrimps which are mildly flavoured, this is the dip which goes along with it. Just season the shrimps with salt and pepper, drizzle lots of fresh lemon juice and glaze it with olive oil, and I have thrown in some rosemary too which accentuates the flavour.

Ingredients:

Shrimps (medium / large size with tails intact) : 10-12
Juice of lemon : 1 tbsp freshly squeezed
Olive oil : 1 tbsp
Salt and black pepper for seasoning
Rosemary (finely chopped) / optional : 1/2 tsp

Method :

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees, or if you are using gas grill, then set the heat to medium.

Shelled and deveined the shrimps, rinse or soak them in salted lukewarm water for 5 minutes.

Season the shrimps with salt and pepper, drizzle the lemon juice over them, brush them well with olive oil infused with rosemary and lined them in a tray or put them in a skewer. If you are using bamboo skewers, then soak them in water for few minutes before using them.

Roast them or grill them for exactly 5 minutes till they turn little pinkish in color. If you are roasting them in the oven then turn the shrimp after 2 1/2 minutes. Both side should be equally cooked.

Served the grilled / roasted shrimps with the thousand island dressing. If requires you can squeeze more lemon juice over the shrimps, it will help to keep them moist.