Shrimp stock may not be something you use every day, but it can be very useful for certain dishes. When you’re working with raw shrimp, the most obvious thing in the world is to make stock from the shells and heads after cleaning them.
It’s a perfect base, for example, for the famous and popular Thai tom yum soup, but it can also be used as a natural flavor booster in any seafood dish.
How to Make Shrimp Stock
Making it is extremely simple. Basically, you simmer the flavor out of the shells and heads of raw shrimp—which aren’t edible anyway, so you would pretty much throw them out—for 20 minutes over low heat. That’s it. No need to complicate it, and no need to add anything else.
You don’t need to season it either, since the whole point of the stock is that it will season other dishes later. That’s why we make it. For this reason, don’t salt it either. This way, you’ll be able to adjust the saltiness of the final dish much more easily.
I think there are two things worth paying attention to.
The first is that when you clean the shrimp, rinse out the heads. The shells can go into the stock as they are, but wash out the orange-colored parts from the heads that rinse out easily. The stock should be nice and clear, and you don’t need that in there. Likewise, if the shrimp’s intestinal tract comes out during cleaning, don’t put that into the stock either.
The other is that when the stock starts to gently simmer, keep skimming off the foam. There will be quite a lot of it, and of course that’s exactly what we don’t need if we want a clear stock.
Shrimp Stock
Ingredients
- 5 ¼ cups water 1.25 liters
- 14 oz shrimp shells and heads 400 g
Instructions
- To make shrimp stock, clean the shrimp. For the stock, you only need the shells and heads. Rinse the heads, washing out anything that comes out easily. If the black intestinal tract also comes out during cleaning, discard it.
- Place the shrimp shells and heads in a pot with cold water.
- Cook for 20 minutes from the time it starts to boil, keeping it at a very gentle simmer. Meanwhile, skim off the foam with a spoon or a strainer.
- Finally, strain the whole thing. You only need the clear shrimp stock.
