Skip to main content
Main

Grilled Shrimp with Tamarind Sauce

Shrimp grilled in shells, served with a tamarind, peanut oil, cilantro, garlic, Sriracha, palm sugar, and fish sauce sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sriracha and fish sauce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 50 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: peanut, soy, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • Garnish

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare grill for cooking.

  2. Soak shrimp (still in shells) in salt water for 5 minutes, then rinse well in a colander.

  3. Place tamarind in a bowl with 1/3 cup water and rub with your fingers to dissolve the pulp.

  4. Pour the mixture through a strainer into a bowl, pressing hard on solids, and discard the solids.

Make the tamarind sauce

  1. Heat peanut oil in a small heavy saucepan over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then cook the cilantro paste and garlic, stirring until fragrant.

  2. Stir in Sriracha, 3 tablespoons tamarind juice, palm sugar, and fish sauce.

  3. Simmer until thickened to the consistency of a light syrup, about 3 minutes.

Grill and serve

  1. Snip the shells of the shrimp with scissors down the center of the back, from the wide end to the second-to-last tail section.

  2. Butterfly the shrimp in their shells, making a deep incision along the length of the back where the shells are cut, and devein.

  3. Grill the shrimp on their sides on an oiled rack set 5 to 6 inches over glowing coals until the shells are pink and slightly charred and the shrimp are just cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes on each side. (Alternatively, grill shrimp in a hot well-seasoned ridged grill pan over moderate heat.)

  4. Spoon tamarind sauce over the shrimp (still in shells) in a serving dish.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sriracha + fish saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Shrimp + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,546 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  3. Garlic + srirachatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Shrimp + peanut oiltop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Shrimp + tamarindtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Forms the main protein; cooking it in the shell helps keep the meat moist and juicy.
Tamarind
Adds sourness and fruity tang that balances the sweet and hot flavors of the sauce.
Palm sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce reduce to a glossy, syrupy consistency.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens as it cooks in the oil.
Fish sauce
Adds savory depth and salty umami to the sauce.

The step that matters

Grilling the shrimp until just cooked through. Shrimp turn rubbery quickly once overcooked. Grilling in the shell and watching for pink shells with just-cooked flesh keeps the meat tender and juicy.

Flavor stand-ins for the sriracha

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, tamarind, sauce, peanut oil, garlic, sugar, fish sauce):

  1. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  2. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  3. Cuminabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Srirachathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, tamarind, sauce, peanut oil, garlic, sugar, fish sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Illustration of Fried FishIllustrationFried Fish120 recipesIllustration of Fish CroquettesIllustrationFish Croquettes81 recipesIllustration of Scalloped CodIllustrationScalloped Cod69 recipesIllustration of Broiled FishIllustrationBroiled Fish68 recipes