How to Clean & Devein Shrimp

Series Summary

Frutti di mare, the produce of the sea, the catch of the day—seafood is known by many names, and it serves as the main ingredient in many dishes. A large number of people around the world depend on seafood as a major source of protein in their diet. Fish, shrimp, crabs, lobster and scallops all have different flavors and textures that lend themselves to some delicious dishes, whether fried, poached or boiled. Depending upon the season, the region and the temperature, local seafood can come from the ocean to your plate in the matter of one day; and nothing tastes better than a well-prepared meal of freshly caught seafood.

In these free cooking videos, get tips for making some delicious seafood recipes. Learn how to cook lobster, both tail and whole, how to boil shrimp and how to make crab cakes. Also get seafood recipes for coconut shrimp, snow crab and soft shell crab. Learn to cook these delicious foods to impress a date or for a dinner party. You’re sure to come off looking like a gourmet chef with these cooking tips.

Video Transcript

"Hi! Today we are going to show you how to clean some fresh shrimp and I say fresh only because previously frozen shrimp tends to be a little fishy if you will. A lot of times when people have had seafood they tend to be very strong, it's because its been previously frozen before and it was stored differently and once it was thawed it may have sat at room temperature a little too long and things of that nature. So I am using some fresh shrimp today just because if you can get a hold of it during the summertime, it's a good thing. These are wild shrimp as well. They are not farm raised. So this size here is about a 2125 which means there is about 21 to 25 of these per pound as far as that goes. These are some Gulf white shrimp. So these have already had the heads removed so we are just going to peel the rings of shell off along with the legs, and I am going to leave the tail on. We've got some other videos coming and we are going to show you how to make the shrimp into quite a few different things. But I usually just leave the tail on for a multitude of recipes. I've got here just a paring knife and I am going to go along the back of the shrimp there and we are just going to remove this vein with our fingers because we don't want to eat that. In a sense, this is just when you ask for or when you order from a fish market peeled and deveined shrimp, this is exactly what you are going to get. This is the finished product right here. Now in the event you want to butterfly the shrimp which we are actually going to do on a couple of other recipes, what I will do is take that same cut that I just made with my paring knife and just go a little further down into the flesh of the shrimp. Not too far, I want to leave some substance there and that is a butterfly shrimp."