Yesterday, while at the grocery store, my dad decided to buy almost 2 pounds of LARGE SHRIMP since they were on sale and looked fresh! He asked if I would be able to cook them, and I said, "Sure." Fast forward three hours later, and I was desperately regretting my kind gesture.
If you weren't already aware of this, I absolutely love all things food related and really enjoy cooking. If you also already didn't know this, my mother passed away almost two years ago, and since then, both my dad and I have been doing a lot more cooking. So with that said, I really didn't think that cooking the damn shrimp would really be that horrible. Actually, let me rephrase that. Cooking the shrimp was a breeze. Preparing them, however, was what was HELL.
Growing up, I watched my mom cook all the time and helped as often as possible. She was quite the foodie, an amazing cook, and loved being in the kitchen. So of course I had seen her clean fresh shrimp on multiple occasions and have most likely cleaned probably less than ten in my lifetime. And by clean I mean, SHELLING and DEVEINING the entire crustacean. Because of this, I had become somewhat of a snob when it came to shrimp. If it wasn't cleaned properly, it was badly prepared shrimp. Plus, one could always tell the difference between a great buffet and an okay buffet if their shrimp was deveined or not! UNDEVEINED SHRIMP = AUTOMATIC TURNOFF. Therefore, properly cleaning the recently purchased shrimp was a must!
As previously stated, I really didn't think cleaning shrimp would be that difficult. And by difficult I don't mean hard but just extremely STRENUOUS. It literally took me an hour and a half (Yes, 90 minutes) to CLEAN 67 LARGE SHRIMP. To top it off, I work fairly quickly but meticulously. Shelling each shrimp was easy and was done in less than five seconds. However, deveining the small bastards definitely took much longer. If you are not familiar with the anatomy of a shrimp, the vein is the black line of excrement, guts, and other nasty stuff located down the back and inside curve of the sea creature. You have to use a small scalpel to get it out. It's pretty simple and easy to do, but just takes time when cleaning more than a dozen shrimp. And the time it took definitely took a toll on my body. Let's just say my back was hurting after bending over the sink for that long, and it was NOT FUN! The entire time I kept yelling at my dad about why he had to buy so much shrimp!
It was such a hassle, that I also kept thinking, "Wow! Cleaning shrimp really should be some sort of torture method." Those undergoing the torture would of course not be able to eat the shrimp and would have to watch others enjoy all their hard work. Therefore, making it even more unbearable and quite agonizing, at least to a fat ass like me. Haha. Crazy thoughts, I know. Anyway, unlike these supposed torture victims, I was lucky enough to eat the shrimp I prepared. SPICY HONEY DIJON SHRIMP. No recipe followed, and they came out tasting quite delicious :) SO.....
Question: Is spending 2 HOURS cleaning and cooking shrimp worth the 10 MINUTES it takes to eat it?
Answers: My foodie self says, "YES, the effort is worth the savory and scrumptious meal."
My lazy self says, "NO, go back to frozen shrimp. It tastes just as good."
thank you for the time and love you put in to those shrimps...they were delicious :)
ps. i know i typed "shrimps", my firefox browser is not showing it as a misspelled word.