Many people will find this their idea of paradise: simply grilled shrimp in a strong-flavored soy dipping sauce.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　1 tablespoon medium-hot paprika

　　2 tablespoons peanut oil

　　Salt and freshly ground black pepper

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

　　1/2 cup good-quality soy sauce

　　1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic

　　1 1/2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger

　　2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

　　1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste

　　

Step 1

Preheat a grill to moderately hot. Mix the paprika, peanut oil, and salt and pepper to taste and rub all over the shrimp. Grill the shrimp, turning once, until done, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the soy sauce with the garlic, ginger, lemon juice, and cayenne; taste and adjust the seasoning.

　　

Step 2

Serve the shrimp hot, with the soy mixture as a dipping sauce.

　　

Shrimp

Step 3

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 4

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 5

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.