- Hey bakers, John from Preppy Kitchen here.
Today, we're making this delicious shrimp salad.
Perfectly seasoned shrimp, lots of creamy avocado,
and the rest is just gonna blow your mind.
Let's get started.
First off, let's smash and mince some garlic.
I'm using about five cloves, you can use more or less
if you're a garlic fiend or squeamish with it.
I like smashing the garlic because I'm a boy. (laughs)
But mostly because it helps release the oils in the garlic
and it makes peeling them really easy.
I've tried those hacks where you put them
in a jar and shake really hard and it does not work.
I don't know what to tell you.
I talked about this on Instagram, @preppykitchen,
and I had a bunch of my followers tell me that
American garlic doesn't peel very easily for some reason,
but wherever they are, the hack works.
So, in the comments, you can let me know
if that trick works for you
or how you like to peel you're garlic, I'm interested.
All right, give it a nice mince.
You don't have to go crazy,
you can just be like a nice chop, not a bad chop.
(funk music)
Okay, that's all chopped up.
I'm gonna set this aside on my knife like a big kid.
I have some easy-peel shrimp here.
It's a nice option at the market if they have it.
Or, you can get pre-peeled and de-veined shrimp.
It's totally up to you.
I have a bounty, I'm only gonna make half of this
because it's just me eating the shrimp today,
and I'm already pretty full.
One, two, three, four, five, seven, I'll make eight.
I can always make more room for shrimp. (laughs)
Oh nice, they're already de-veined.
Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
If they weren't de-veined, all you have to do is,
make a shallow slit along the back
and pull out the vein which is really just
the shrimp's digestive tract.
All right, so just peel, peel, peel.
Right now, I'm just going to pat the shrimp down a bit.
This will make sure it cooks up nicely, beautiful.
Okay, I'm gonna use a combination of
olive oil and butter to cook the shrimp.
I love the taste of olive oil and butter, so why not?
Just melt it up.
Now we can add in our garlic.
Just cook it up, stir frequently.
You don't want to burn it.
Okay, now I'm gonna add my shrimp in.
Little salt and pepper.
Flip them over once they look cooked.
You can add a splash of white wine
at the very end, if you want.
That's done.
For the dressing, I'm gonna be using
almost a whole shallot.
This is a huge shallot.
I'm gonna use most of it.
I love the flavor it gives.
It adds a lot of just, pop,
and it's not gonna be like eating an onion.
A shallot is a gentler onion,
it's like its best friend without the attitude,
and when you add it into the vinegar,
it'll give it like a quick pickle
and totally take a lot of that harsh bite out.
So, don't be afraid.
It's a really nice way to add
a healthy crunch to a salad, too.
So, I'm gonna leave this kind of more in slices,
I think that'll look nice on the salad.
Try not to cry, those sea turtles are gonna make it.
Okay, so let's add this in here.
Really used that whole shallot, didn't I?
Let's reserve a quarter teaspoon for later.
Whew, my eyes.
Gonna add in about half of a cup of a nice vinegar.
I like to use a champagne or a white wine.
This is a white wine vinegar
because I can't find the champagne vinegar in the pantry.
There we go.
Mm, let that hang out for a minute.
We're gonna use a little bit of fresh thyme in this recipe.
I love, love, love fresh thyme.
I'm covered in tears, oh my gosh.
(beep)
I love fresh thyme in almost all of my salad dressings
as one of my things.
The smell is just amazing,
it's like opening the door into your little garden
that you have, except you don't have a garden, do you?
Little bit of a chop, and add that in there, too.
That'll infuse nicely.
Okay, while that's happening, I can add my olive oil in now.
Why not?
I have one avocado here, and I'm hoping,
I'm hoping it's ripe and not brown inside.
(gasps)
What if it was brown?
Ready?
(laughs)
This makes me so happy.
The only thing comparable to it
is cutting a coconut open and it just becomes
like two perfect halves, that gets me, too.
All right, let's peel the skin off gently,
so it's not marred by the knife.
In the cover shot for this video,
you're looking at beautiful, stunning,
psychedelic candy beets.
I'll put a title here for what they're actually called,
the beets of the sea, but they are farmer's market delight.
We don't have time to go to the farmer's market today,
so we're using regular beets, which taste just as delicious,
they're just not psychedelic pink and white stripes,
so if you know me and my videos,
I'm all about the stripes and pink and white.
I'm done.
All right, we're gonna give this a thin slice.
And the last thing to do before we assemble our salad
is just make our little tomato situation happen.
These avocados are soft as butter.
It's one of the nice things about living in California,
you get really good avocados.
All right, we're gonna set these aside,
and chop up some cherry tomatoes.
The tomatoes with this dressing is beyond.
I'm like, I don't love tomatoes, I like them and I eat them,
but they're not, you know, I'm not that into you,
especially if they're not cooked.
Like, cooked tomatoes, that's one thing.
Raw tomatoes, they better be really, really good,
like summertime fresh.
But, this dressing with the shallots and the tomatoes
is kind of amazing,
so even if you're not a super tomato fan,
try it out, let me know what you think.
We're just cutting them in half
so they're in manageable bits.
Somethings so relaxing about cutting vegetables
and not cutting yourself. (laughs)
Set that aside.
And my last bit of prep is a blood orange.
You can use any kind of orange you want.
Blood oranges do have a beautiful dark color, look at that.
And, they're not as acidic as a regular orange,
so you get kind of a more delicate flavor,
which I think helps in a salad
because they don't overwhelm the rest of the ingredients.
But if you can't come by them,
any kind of orange will do.
Look at this color, this is stunning every time, every time.
Some blood oranges are basically regular oranges.
Some of them are totally dark like this, and I love it.
Okay, I mean that was not the best job peeling,
but it'll work.
I'm just gonna cut little slices out now.
These will be arranged nicely and look pretty.
We have everything sliced and prepped.
The only thing we have to do is
shake our mason jar with our top.
With the top.
(beeps)
Everything's all prepped, let's finish up that dressing.
Let's add in like half a teaspoon of salt to start.
And, we'll give it a taste.
Never trust how much salt
you're supposed to add into a recipe,
no matter what you read
because even brands of salt are different.
Like iodized salt is really salty and strong.
Sea salt's a little bit mellower.
And then depending on the grain size,
you could be adding more or less.
So, just add salt to taste.
Same goes for pepper, too.
It's also a personal taste thing.
Some people love salt, some people can't stand it.
A friend of mine in college loved salt,
and her boyfriend at the time
gave her a salt lick for her birthday. (laughs)
That's like a gag present, but she liked it.
That looks emulsified.
Love the colors, oh my gosh.
Let's plate it up and get this ready.
Gonna take my tomatoes,
just toss them in some of the dressing really quickly.
And if you want, you can do this part ahead of time,
so just let your tomatoes sit in that dressing,
they'll absorb some of the delicious flavors
and release some of their juices, too,
and it will be amazing.
Let's arrange our plate.
This is the exciting part for me.
So I have some beets here, regular old beets.
I bought canned ones because canned ones are actually good.
I don't know if some of you are not into it,
but the difference in fresh beets to canned beets
isn't so extreme to justify the time, for me.
Scoop on some of this tomato situation here, really pretty.
And, who could say no to a beautiful fan of avocado.
Just try and fan it out nicely,
so you get all that gradation of color.
There we go, that looks nice.
To that, we're gonna add some shrimp.
You can arrange them however you'd like.
I'm gonna try and make a little pattern with them.
And I'm dredging them in some of the reserved
butter and garlic before I place them, too, because hello.
I think that looks nice already.
Just a nice way of portioning things out for people.
If you want, and you love that garlic, too,
you can spoon on some of that caramelized garlic
all over the shrimp and it is amazing
mixed with the butter and that wine.
It's a little bit extra dressing to your dressing.
I don't know how attractive it is,
but it's so delicious, I love garlic.
I forgot my own recipe, food blogger,
calls for some minced parsley,
so just give it a quick cut.
Now I'm gonna spoon on, oh my gosh,
do you see these beautiful shallots here.
(gasps)
So full of bite and zing.
Add on some of that minced parsley over.
I almost forgot the blood oranges.
What am I thinking?
Okay, let's arrange some of those in there.
You could have tossed these with the tomatoes as well,
but we didn't do that.
So, they can just be interspersed around,
so people can get bites here and there.
And, now we're done, okay, hands off.
(funk music)
That was a giant bite, but that was so delicious.
The shrimp was perfectly seasoned,
and I am so glad I dredged it in that
butter-garlic situation just before the end
because that made a big difference.
If you liked this recipe,
check out my creamy, dreamy and very, very zingy lemon cake.
It is so easy to make, and you will love it.
And, on the theme of light and delicious things,
how about a fresh strawberry margarita?
So worth the extra couple steps
to make this drink from scratch.
You will be tanked. (laughs)
Thanks so much for watching.
If you like my videos, hit that like button and subscribe.