Who you calling a shrimp!?

I definitely live my life cooking as simply as possible. Cooking for one deems that almost critical since leftovers can get boring if eaten for days and days in a row. Also, if you're preparing it for yourself, you're almost as inclined to eat dinner out of a plastic container then set up a nice presentation. (This is why going out to restaurants is so important to me, a foodie, to see food at it's finest.) But again, we can't afford to eat out all the time. And sometimes, you have to prepare your favorites at home.

Last night I was struggling with what to eat. I had some items in my freezer and almost nothing to go with them. But what's wrong with a night o' homemade tapas or endless buffet of appetizers? My favorite and perhaps the easiest being Shrimp Cocktail!

And so, I defrosted some frozen, raw shrimp and set some salted water to boiling. But the MAIN reason I mention this portion of my dinner is to highlight the difference in flavor between pre-frozen COOKED shrimp and Frozen Raw shrimp. One comes out tough and chewy with a dull flavor (almost tasteless), the other comes out succulent and sweet. Why is this? By the time you've defrosted pre-cooked shrimp, it might have freezer burn or worse yet, you're adding it to a hot recipe. If that is the case, by definition, the shrimp are going to be overcooked.

I am a new convert to the use of frozen raw shrimp and while it took some adjustment to accept that I wouldn't poison myself by cooking raw shrimp in whatever sauce I was making, the simple 3-6 minutes it takes to cook raw shrimp (3-4 min for boiling, 6-8 min to saute in sauce), is well worth it. I understand the avoidance of the small amount of extra cleaning and removal of the exoskeleton, but if you're a foodie, that's part of the fun. And definitely well worth the additional sweetness that the shrimp yields when cooked to order!