sopa de camarones

I found some fresh gulf shrimp yesterday head on!  don't overlook these puppies.  no way to beat the flavor of the heads and shells.  I roast or saute them in little olive oil and get them smelling right and get a little color on them.  then they are ready for the extraction of flavor.

I place them in a pot of hot water and use the hot water to get all the bits up from the bottom of the pan.  you can do this all in the same pan, but I want to get every shrimp browned properly so I use a larger skillet for this.  Drop a whole dried chipotle pepper in here and onion ends, a garlic clove, bay leaf, a half a celery stalk or carrot.  and simmer for an hour.  The trick for maximum flavor is this ---> get out your hand blander and whip it up good.  let it steep a little longer if you have time and then strain....  it is pure shrimp flavor with a hint of heat and smoke from the chipotle.

This part is ready now
When Cray Cray gets home for dinner I plan to start the soup with sweated celery, onion and garlic then add one or maybe two chopped fresh tomato. do I have any white wine?  that would be great here.  then the stock.  Season with salt to taste here.  Maybe a touch of oregano and some chile pequins if I need more heat.
Poach the peeled fresh shrimp in this just before serving and garnish with fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

more pics of the completed dish to come later...

I ate a few shrimpies before I remember to snap a pic!  So good I invested in a few more pounds of head on shrimp to repeat this dish this sometime week.