Chef Joel & Jenn: Spicy Shrimp Tacos
After two fabulous mini-vacations its been nice to get back into a somewhat normal routine and enjoy some good old fashion home cooking. I'm not sure what spurred on the latest recipe, but I woke up on Sunday morning craving shrimp tacos. I ended up scouring the internet for a shrimp taco recipe (something I've never made) and came across one on GimmeDelicious.com.
The recipe is both one for shrimp tacos and an avocado salsa to pair with it. We stuck strictly with the shrimp tacos electing to just pair it with some sour cream and avocado rather than make the salsa. My one failure as a chef for the spicy shrimp tacos was my lack of reading the directions before cooking. The recipe calls to marinate the shrimp for 10 minutes to 24 hours. We went for 10-minutes and the shrimp and seasoning suffered for it.
After letting the shrimp quickly marinate we got the rest of the ingredients prepped and we were ready to get cooking. The process was pretty easy and had the recipe come out better I could have totally seen the spicy shrimp tacos being a staple for us. Sadly, the shrimp came out tasteless. There was no spice, and almost no taste of any of the seasoning we had put on it. Even when we got some taste of the spice it just didn't pack the punch we were hoping for.
At the end of the day we ate the tacos, we tolerated the tacos, and we've decided we won't be making these tacos again.
Recipe
INGREDIENTS
- 20 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1½ tablespoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder (optional)
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- squeeze of lime (optional)
DIRECTIONS
- In a medium bowl whisk together olive oil, garlic, cumin, chili and onion powders, and salt.
- Add in shrimp and toss to coat completely. Cover and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes or up to 24 hours.
- Heat a large heavy-duty or cast iron skillet on high heat for 2 minutes.
- Add the olive oil and shrimp. Cook shrimp in a skillet on medium-high heat until pink and cooked through, about 5 minutes.
- Turn off heat and finish with a squeeze of lime (optional).
