This is an old New Orleans recipe that has nothing to do with grilling or barbecuing. Its name comes from the spicy, slightly smoky flavor the shrimp gain while being cooked with Worcestershire sauce and lots of black pepper. It’s a fine and almost absurdly fast dish—once the shrimp are peeled, you can have it on the table in ten minutes, and that’s no exaggeration with a creamy, rich, savory sauce that completely belies the amount of effort required on your part.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

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

　　2 tablespoons Worcestershire or soy sauce

　　Salt and freshly ground black pepper

　　Juice of 1 lemon

　　

Step 1

Put the butter in a skillet over high heat; when it melts, add the shrimp and Worcestershire sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is glossy and thick and the shrimp uniformly pink, about 5 minutes. If at any point the sauce threatens to dry out, add a tablespoon or two of water.

　　

Step 2

When the shrimp are done, add salt to taste and 1/2 teaspoon or more pepper, then stir in the lemon juice. Serve over rice or with bread.

　　

Variations

Step 3

Use 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar in place of the Worcestershire sauce; omit the lemon juice.

　　

Step 4

Use 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard and 1 tablespoon of water in place of the Worcestershire sauce.

　　

Shrimp

Step 5

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 6

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 7

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.