Why are unpeeled shrimp supposedly better?

[Anonymous]

Please help me out here. Every food blog I’ve read says that if you’re pan cooking shrimp, unpeeled shrimp are much better than peeled, and only a novice cook would get unpeeled shrimp. But are they eating the peel? Or just sucking the peel before eating it (which seems unsatisfying and also gross)? When I cook unpeeled shrimp, all of the delicious herbs and garlic stick to the peel, so when we peel the shrimp and eat them, all of that flavor is lost. What are we doing wrong? Why not just buy peeled shrimp?

[Anonymous]

Shrimp oils. They pack a lot more flavor. You should also be leaving on the head. Asian cooking, especially Thai food for example, much prefers whole shrimp for many dishes because the shrimp oil adds flavor.

Ever eat Tom Yum with whole shrimp that have the heads? You can see the orange oil droplets in the broth. It comes from the shrimp oil. People also suck out the heads because it is a delicacy. If you buy peeled shrimp with no heads you lose a lot of flavor.

[Anonymous]

Shell has lots of flavor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shrimp oils. They pack a lot more flavor. You should also be leaving on the head. Asian cooking, especially Thai food for example, much prefers whole shrimp for many dishes because the shrimp oil adds flavor.

Ever eat Tom Yum with whole shrimp that have the heads? You can see the orange oil droplets in the broth. It comes from the shrimp oil. People also suck out the heads because it is a delicacy. If you buy peeled shrimp with no heads you lose a lot of flavor.

+1

[Anonymous]

shell on shrimp taste SO MUCH better and make the sauce taste better. no contest. but a good compromise is tail-on shrimp. I’ve been having a hard time finding those recently though.

[Anonymous]

You peel the cooked shrimp before you eat them! Messy but so good.

[Anonymous]

Shrimp with shells on just have a much better flavor.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I appreciate all these responses. I assume you all are still peeling the shrimp before you eat them? Aren’t you losing all of the herbs that are coated on the peel? And are you saying that the peel contains the shrimp oils? Thank you!!

[Anonymous]

Op again. Also, when you pan cook shrimp with the shell on, the shell turns a beautiful golden brown, but then when you peel it off, you are eating shrimp that are cooked but they’re not browned as the shells are. Intuitively, this just seems wrong to me since I am used to searing foods in oil or butter. To me this is like browning a steak, and then cutting off the browned parts that have the best flavor. I’m just not understanding why you would brown a shell in oil with herbs and then remove all of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate all these responses. I assume you all are still peeling the shrimp before you eat them? Aren’t you losing all of the herbs that are coated on the peel? And are you saying that the peel contains the shrimp oils? Thank you!!

Yes, you peel before you eat. Yes, the peel and head contain the oils. You can also cut the shells open down the spine while they're raw like you're de-veining but still leave the shells on. The herbs can get inside and you still get the oils from the head and shell.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in the south where we could go buy shrimp fresh off the boat at the dock.

We would shell them first, then cook them, in dishes like shrimp creole and shrimp curry. I can’t remember how we cooked them if we just boiled them simply.

If you cook them in the shells, you shell them before you eat them.

[Anonymous]

I buy them whole, peel them, and use the head and shell to make the broth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op again. Also, when you pan cook shrimp with the shell on, the shell turns a beautiful golden brown, but then when you peel it off, you are eating shrimp that are cooked but they’re not browned as the shells are. Intuitively, this just seems wrong to me since I am used to searing foods in oil or butter. To me this is like browning a steak, and then cutting off the browned parts that have the best flavor. I’m just not understanding why you would brown a shell in oil with herbs and then remove all of that.

You can also peel the shrimp but leave the heads on if you're worried about seasonings penetrating the meat of the shrimp. Remove the head before eating. You still get oils from the head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op again. Also, when you pan cook shrimp with the shell on, the shell turns a beautiful golden brown, but then when you peel it off, you are eating shrimp that are cooked but they’re not browned as the shells are. Intuitively, this just seems wrong to me since I am used to searing foods in oil or butter. To me this is like browning a steak, and then cutting off the browned parts that have the best flavor. I’m just not understanding why you would brown a shell in oil with herbs and then remove all of that.

browning the shell creates better flavor than browning the shrimp directly. and browned shrimp would be overcooked anyway.

[Anonymous]

These are good questions, OP. I think you’d appreciate Kenji Lopez Alt’s cookbook The Food Lab, and the shrimp scampi pasta recipe there. Kenji has you prepare garlic in three ways for various stages of the (still quite easy) recipe and has you cook the shells with garlic and oil before sautéing the shrimp. Its so tasty.