Shrimp in Moroccan-Style Tomato Sauce

Preparation

1. Step 1

   Put the olive oil in a deep skillet and over medium-high heat. A minute later, add the ginger and cook, stirring for about a minute. Add the spices and lime leaf and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and some salt and pepper, stir, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is nearly dry, about 15 minutes.

   Step 2

   Add the shrimp and stir. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp are cooked through, about 10 minutes.

   Step 3

   Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary, then serve over white rice, garnished with the cilantro and accompanied by the lime wedges.

2. Shrimp

   Step 4

   Almost all shrimp are frozen before sale. So unless you’re in a hurry, you might as well buy them frozen and defrost them yourself; this will guarantee you that they are defrosted just before you cook them, therefore retaining peak quality.

3. Step 5

   There are no universal standards for shrimp size; large and medium don’t mean much. Therefore, it pays to learn to judge shrimp size by the number per pound, as retailers do. Shrimp labeled 16/20, for example, contain sixteen to twenty per pound; those labeled U-20 require fewer (under) twenty to make a pound. Shrimp from fifteen to about thirty per pound usually give the best combination of flavor, ease (peeling tiny shrimp is a nuisance), and value (really big shrimp usually cost more than $15 a pound).

4. Step 6

   On deveining: I don’t. You can, if you like, but it’s a thankless task, and there isn’t one person in a hundred who could blind-taste the difference between shrimp that have and have not been deveined.