Shrimp Stock

Shrimp stock! What? That's not exciting to you? But it's delicious! Why throw away those shells when you can make something delicious to add to your next pasta salad or gumbo? Why pay for clam broth when you're half way to stock already?

Remember these shrimp? The beer poached ones? The delicious slow cooked ones?

I'm going to make a lovely shrimp stock from their shells!

This is what was left in the pan after we took the shrimp out. It's beer and spices and a few extraneous peppercorns. Usually there would be a few bits of onion in there too but I am adding green onion to this recipe further down the line.

Let's gather the lemons and garlic out of the shrimp . . .

. . . and put them back in your poaching broth! There's my thyme packet too! My fresh thyme is almost ready to go, I can't wait!

Now peel your shrimp and . . . taste one to make sure it's wonderful and briny and sweet and then stop yourself before you eat 10 of them.

Throw the shells in the broth too!

Now if you happen to be "serving" these shrimp as peel and eat shrimp I whole heartily recommend you put a nice clean bowl in the middle of the table and tell your guests to put their shells in the bowl. After they're done doing the work for you throw the shells in a bag with the broth, lemons, garlic, etc. freeze it and make your stock at a convenient time!

Throw them all in!

There was some juice in the bottom of the bowl! Waste not want not.

Now we're going to bring everything to a big hot boil! In 5-10 minutes you're going to be losing serious water here.

Eventually you have only a little liquid on the bottom of the pan so get a strainer and get all your solid stuff out of the pan. It'll make the pouring easier.

Now pour the broth threw the strainer.

Give the shells a squish. I gave them a flip and a squish too but that's not pictured. How would you photograph a flip squish?

Look at that stock! There's a half cup of it there and it's full of shrimp flavor. You can put it in the freezer and store it for some time when you're using frozen precooked shrimp in a recipe that could use a little extra shrimp flavor. You could put it in a soup. You could even make your own Clamato drink! But you'd have to call it shrimato . . . imagine the Bloody Marys!