The main ingredients are standard Italian, the technique and appearance are standard, but the seasonings are from the other side of the Mediterranean. And that’s the key: by substituting a couple of different spices, most or all of which you have sitting in your kitchen already, you can transform the common into the exotic.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　2 tablespoons olive oil

　　1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger

　　1 tablespoon ground cumin

　　1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander

　　1 lime leaf, minced, or 1 teaspoon minced lime zest

　　One 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, drained, or 2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

　　Salt and freshly ground black pepper

　　1 1/2 pounds peeled shrimp, deveined if you like

　　Minced fresh cilantro for garnish

　　Lime wedges

　　

Step 1

Put the olive oil in a deep skillet and over medium-high heat. A minute later, add the ginger and cook, stirring for about a minute. Add the spices and lime leaf and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and some salt and pepper, stir, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is nearly dry, about 15 minutes.

　　

Step 2

Add the shrimp and stir. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp are cooked through, about 10 minutes.

　　

Step 3

Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary, then serve over white rice, garnished with the cilantro and accompanied by the lime wedges.

　　

Shrimp

Step 4

Almost all shrimp are frozen before sale. So unless you’re in a hurry, you might as well buy them frozen and defrost them yourself; this will guarantee you that they are defrosted just before you cook them, therefore retaining peak quality.

　　

Step 5

There are no universal standards for shrimp size; large and medium don’t mean much. Therefore, it pays to learn to judge shrimp size by the number per pound, as retailers do. Shrimp labeled 16/20, for example, contain sixteen to twenty per pound; those labeled U-20 require fewer (under) twenty to make a pound. Shrimp from fifteen to about thirty per pound usually give the best combination of flavor, ease (peeling tiny shrimp is a nuisance), and value (really big shrimp usually cost more than $15 a pound).

　　

Step 6

On deveining: I don’t. You can, if you like, but it’s a thankless task, and there isn’t one person in a hundred who could blind-taste the difference between shrimp that have and have not been deveined.

　　From Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes From the New York Times by Mark Bittman Copyright (c) 2007 by Mark Bittman Published by Broadway Books.Mark Bittman is the author of the blockbuster Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.