Camarones a la diabla

As tradition built it

Camarones a la diabla

Serves 4. About 30 minutes.

Ingredients

The sauce

• 5 guajillo chiles, seeded, deveined and toasted
• 2 pasilla chiles, seeded, deveined and toasted
• to cover boiling salted water
• 2 chipotles in adobo
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tomatoes, roasted

The shrimp

• as needed oil
• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 1kg large shrimp (U15), heads off
• 3 chiles de árbol
• 60ml orange juice
• to taste salt and pepper
• to serve limes, quartered

Method

1. Soak the guajillo and pasilla chiles in boiling salted water until soft. Blend them with the chipotles, garlic and tomatoes to a smooth sauce.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan and soften the onion. Add the shrimp and cook 5 minutes.
3. Add the chiles de árbol, the sauce and the orange juice. Season with salt and pepper and let it reduce 5 minutes more.
4. Serve with lime quarters.

Notes

The recipe is Larousse Cocina's.

What a modern chef changes

Staged heat, hard-seared shrimp

Method

1. Dehydrate half the chile de árbol before adding it, then rehydrate briefly in the orange juice, building the dish's final heat in stages rather than guessing how much raw chile it needs.
2. Pass the sauce through a chinois before the shrimp go in, for a cleaner glaze that coats rather than a sauce carrying visible chile skin.
3. Sear the shrimp hard and fast on the Big Green Egg's direct heat rather than in a pan, for real char in under a minute, then finish them in the sauce only at the very last moment so they never overcook.