Andy Makes Shrimp and Basil Stir Fry

You gotta use your index fingers and your middle fingers.

And then you take your knuckles

and you just go across your forehead like this.

Outwards towards your temples,

and then you can also work your way in.

And it just forces your whole face to kind of relax,

and then once you get the hang of it

you can go around,

and you just hold so much tension around your face.

And it's just good to do this.

I like to do it in the morning;

sometimes when I'm just tired of my colleagues.

(upbeat music)

Today we're making this spicy, funky shrimp dish

that really kind of came about

for our farmer's market challenge for Healthyish.

When you go to the farmer's market,

you'll buy these big bundles of basil

and most likely, I can't even use all of that

so I just made this recipe to kind of

add the basil into the stir fry.

It's a really easy dish,

and I'm gonna show you how to make it.

So the marinade for the shrimp

is fresh chiles, a lot of garlic, fish sauce, and

a healthy amount of sugar.

Maybe not so healthy amount of sugar.

You need the sugar for caramelization,

and to kind of, it provides a lot of balance

from the funk of the fish sauce

and the heat from the chiles.

So first, the marinade, it's all gonna happen in a blender.

Three Fresno chiles.

I use red chiles just for the color.

You can use green chiles if you want.

I'm just gonna give them a coarse chop.

I'm gonna leave the seeds

because this is a pretty spicy dish.

If you want it more spicy, add an extra chile.

If you don't want it spicy, remove some of the seeds.

We're gonna use six garlic cloves.

The garlic is also something you should be

looking at at the farmer's market.

That's when the garlic is still quite fresh

and hasn't dried out,

and it has a subtle, almost sweet flavor to it.

Go in, two tablespoons of fish sauce.

It's pretty concentrated, so actually

two tablespoons doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a lot.

Three tablespoons of oil.

One teaspoon of salt,

and a quarter cup of white sugar.

Again, that's gonna make the shrimp caramelize

really nicely and it provides a nice sweet flavor,

and it's balance with all the kind of aggressive flavors

from the chiles, garlic, and fish sauce.

So I'm just gonna blend this up.

(loud blending)

You want it to be pretty smooth.

I'm just gonna give this one more.

All right, phew.

Super intense.

Opens up the nostrils.

(beeping)

What?

Eh, just a tomato galette.

It needs some work.

So the first time I was making this dish,

Carla and Julia Kramer were at the tasting.

They loved the shrimp, but I did something.

I fried the basil until they were really crisp,

which made them really pretty and almost translucent.

They were like basil chips,

but it was a little fussy and they were like,

No, don't do that.

So that's how I just ended up adding

a big handful of basil at the end.

It's a better basil flavor

cause they kind of wilt

and they don't just kind of fry out in oil.

Once you have the sauce, you're gonna add

one pound of shrimp.

This is headless, shell-less shrimp,

but if you're into that, totally do it

with the shell on and the head on.

I'm gonna just give these a toss,

and the thing when you're working with any kind of seafood:

it doesn't really need to marinate as much

compared to, let's say, a steak

or chicken thighs

or any other kind of protein like that

because the flesh from the shrimp

is actually a lot more softer and less dense,

so all the kind of flavors of the marinade

are gonna be able to penetrate really easily

and that's why we only need to let it sit

for about ten minutes.

Those ten minutes, if you're a smoker

you could smoke a cigarette.

If you're a drinker, you could have a drink.

If you, uh...

Never mind.

I'd probably look up old Oscar speeches , I don't know.

How could that not make you happy anyways?

Back to the recipe.

I'm giving this shrimp a bit of a toss.

It's been about ten minutes.

Its been a while.

We're gonna use a large, non-stick skillet.

We're gonna turn it up to medium-high heat.

I'm gonna add about a tablespoon of oil.

It should be shiny.

I'm gonna add the shrimp.

I'm gonna leave the marinade behind though.

I'm not gonna add the whole thing.

Now, if you don't have a big skillet

you're gonna do this in batches.

We're gonna cook this for about a minute per side

and we're gonna wait until they're nice

and lightly charred on the bottom before we flip them.

Let me just take a peek at one.

That's what you want, lightly charred bits.

That looks good, and see, that sugar helps

with all this kind of caramelization.

Once I flip them, I don't wanna mess around with them.

I don't wanna move them too much.

I want them to kind of sit in place

so they can actually get lightly charred

and caramelized on the other side.

So we'll check.

Both sides nicely charred.

I'm gonna turn this off.

Remove the skillet off heat.

Take my bowl of basil.

This is about two cups of basil.

These are small leaves so I don't have to tear them up.

Give it a light toss.

Smells amazing.

I do it off heat, cause you really

just need the residual heat to wilt the basil,

and I want the basil to kind of stay green.

I don't want it to darken.

I'm gonna take one lime.

I'm just gonna just cut around.

Some people do wedges.

I like to do these little weird pieces like this.

Because of the sugar, you get this kind of,

not necessarily a crusted shell,

like these kind of sticky pieces

that are sweet, spicy, funky, and addictive.

This is probably my favorite shrimp recipe

I've ever developed.

But if you guys need a backup opinion, Leone.

Drop the chicken.

What? Drop the chicken.

We'll get this one.

All right, let's try it.

Great job on the sear. Thank you.

How long did you cook it for?

Minute on one side maybe,

and maybe like 40 seconds on the other.

Good snap?

I think the biggest thing people mess up with shrimp

is they overcook it.

Oh, big time.

Yeah, I mean, this shit happened in like two minutes.

Great balance of heat and sugar.

Yup. And that goes,

that combo I think, is great on sugar.

Yeah, I could eat about 85 of these.

Awesome.

It's weird, I think people think that

the two of us, Brad and myself, don't get along,

but he's like the uncle and I'm like the dad

of the test kitchen.

And we're brothers.

(light music)

No, Rocco's the real dad.

I'm the daddy, with a Y.

That's all.