Today I am sharing with you my favorite shrimp stew recipe. I absolutely love any fish soup or stew, and I make them all of the time, but most of them require a lot of ingredients. So I decided to make a simplified version of my favorite fish stew that I can easily throw together. This stew was partially inspired by the simplicity of beef stew. It has almost all of the ingredients a simple beef stew has, but I replace the beef with shrimp, and the beef broth with chicken broth or fish stock. This stew is full of shrimp, carrots,potatoes, onion, celery, and spices. Your pot will be full to the brim with this amazing stew, and you’ll probably have leftovers for a couple of days.
I make this stew for my family of 5 people, which includes 3 large boys who eat a lot. So, even though this is a big stew, we usually finish it the night that it’s made. If you have a smaller family, or you have people who don’t eat as much, I would recommend making a little bit less.
The first thing I did was pull out my shrimp to thaw in the morning. I left my bag of shrimp out on the counter for about 5 hours, and if it’s not completely thawed by the time I need it, I pour the shrimp into a colander and run some hot water over it.
Then I clean my counter and set out my ingredients. I always wash my vegetables really thoroughly before I start chopping things up. I’ve been using a vegetable wash, but you can use a mixture of vinegar and water to wash the vegetables. Once I'm done with that, I chop up my onion. Then I melt some butter in my pot, throw in the onion and garlic, and saute them until the onion is clear. I add the chicken broth to the pot, and bring it to a boil. While I am waiting for the broth to boil, I work on chopping up my potatoes. I like to cut my potatoes into strips, the same way you would to make french fries, then I chop them into cubes. You can quarter and slice your potatoes, I just think cutting them into cubes makes it easier to eat. Once I have chopped up my potatoes I add them into the pot with the chicken broth and onions, and let it boil. While the potatoes are boiling, I chop up my carrots, celery, and shrimp, put it in a large bowl and set it aside.
After I’ve done that, I start adding my seasonings to the stew. I don’t measure the seasonings at all, I just add what I think looks good, and then when the soup is almost done, I will taste the broth and add more if I think it’s necessary. When the potatoes are close to done, I add my shrimp, celery, and carrots to the pot, put it on medium heat and cover it. When the celery and carrots are soft, and the shrimp is nice and pink, the stew is done. At this point I will taste the broth, and decide if I need to add more seasonings to the stew. I like to add a lot of garlic powder, but I don’t add much salt, because I don’t want to over do it. When the stew is served, more salt can be added to the individual portions. The last thing I do before serving the stew is garnish it with either cilantro, or parsley. I personally think that cilantro goes really well with all of the other flavors in this stew, but if you don’t like cilantro, parsley is good too.
Ingredients
1 yellow onion
1 ½ cups chopped carrots
7 ribs of celery
6 golden potatoes
2 lb shrimp
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 32 ounce containers of chicken broth or fish stock
4 cups of water
1 bunch of cilantro or parsley
Garlic powder
Italian Seasoning
Salt
Pepper
Instructions
Chop the onion into small pieces. In a large pot, saute the garlic and onion in some butter or oil until the onion is clear.
Pour in the chicken broth, and bring it to a boil.
While the chicken broth is being brought to a boil, chop the potatoes into small cubes or slices.
Add the potatoes to the chicken broth, and let it continue to boil.
While the potatoes are boiling, chop up the carrots and celery, and place them into a large bowl.
Then chop up the shrimp and add it to the bowl with the carrots and celery.
Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, and italian seasoning to the chicken broth.
Once the potatoes are close to being done, pour in the carrots, celery, and shrimp.
Add the 4 cups of water to the mixture, and let it boil until the carrots and celery are soft. You can add more seasonings if you feel like the broth needs it.
Garnish with cilantro or parsley.