Hot and Spicy Shrimp

Packing a lot of flavour and heat, these hot and spicy shrimp are a must-try recipe. A medley of garlic, chilli peppers, shallots, ginger, and lemongrass makes these the perfect shrimp dish. They are absolutely delicious and if you love shrimp then this is for you. For this recipe, you can get already cleaned out shrimp but if you do get fresh shrimps then you will need to devein and clean them out properly. As well as giving off different levels of heat the colours on this dish are just incredibly beautiful. Ideally, food should be pleasing to the eye as well as to the palate.

For this recipe, I used fresh shrimp, took off the legs, cut off the tip of the head. In my opinion, these hot and spicy shrimp need a bit of kick, therefore, don't completely take out the heat by way of hot peppers. If you however want a shrimp dish that is not hot and spicy and prefer something milder then check out my cheesy shrimp sauce. or this beautiful mixed leaf salad .

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Tips
• Hot and Spicy Shrimp

Ingredients

Apart from the ingredients shown, you will also need ginger, salt, vegetable oil and olive oil. The full ingredient list can be found in the recipe card.

Instructions

A host of local bright, hot peppers: kpakposhito( Pettie belles), scotch bonnets and green chillies which is a blend of my favourites hot peppers were used for these spicy shrimp. These are chopped and tossed in some oil alongside shallots and garlic to form the base of what the shrimp will be tossed in.

Depending on the size of your shrimp you want to ensure that you aren’t overcooking them just because nobody likes rubbery shrimp. The shrimp are fried first once before being tossed in the pepper, garlic, shallot mix.

The shells are kept on, thus preventing the shrimp from drying out too quickly. However, they can still end up overcooked so that's something to be on the lookout for.

Now with these shrimp, you have to get your fingers dirty. Take off the shell and enjoy but only do this if you are used to eating spicy food with your fingers. If you need to get gloves, then do that too. Trying to eat these with cutlery, however, is not the best look.

Substitutions

• Bell Pepper/Sweet Peppers - if you do not like heat you can substitute the hot peppers with different bell peppers or sweet peppers. These will add a different flavour to the profile and will also add the needed colour to the dish.
• Onions - the small shallots are easily replaced with regular chopped white or red onions.

Tips

There will be fumes of pepper wafting around your kitchen as you do this so make sure your windows are wide open or that you generally do this in a well-ventilated space.