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1
Combine the lime juice, sugar, and nam pla.
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2
Put the oil in a 10- or 12-inch skillet over high heat.
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3
A minute later, add the garlic and hot pepper and cook just until the garlic begins to brown.
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4
Immediately add the lime juice mixture all at once and cook until it reduces by half, or even more, 3 to 5 minutes; there should be only about 1/4 cup of liquid in the skillet, and it should be syrupy.
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5
Add the shrimp and cook, still over high heat.
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6
The shrimp will give off liquid of their own and begin to turn pink almost immediately.
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7
After about 2 minutes of cooking, stir.
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8
Continue cooking and stirring occasionally until all the shrimp are pink, about 2 minutes later.
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9
Taste and adjust the seasoning, then garnish with cilantro.
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10
Almost all shrimp are frozen before sale.
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11
So unless youre 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.
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12
There are no universal standards for shrimp size; large and medium dont mean much.
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13
Therefore, it pays to learn to judge shrimp size by the number per pound, as retailers do.
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14
Shrimp labeled 16/20, for example, contain sixteen to twenty per pound; those labeled U-20 require fewer (under) twenty to make a pound.
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15
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).
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16
On deveining: I dont.
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17
You can, if you like, but its a thankless task, and there isnt one person in a hundred who could blind-taste the difference between shrimp that have and have not been deveined.
