Baked Shrimp Scampi

Baked shrimp scampi is an easy company dish that can be made ahead of time.

I'm going to make you a scampi baked, going to assemble a whole dish in advance. Put a crunchy crumb topping on the top. And then bake it in 10 minutes before I serve dinner. I have two pounds of really large shrimp, I mean they’re called jumbo, they’re called extra large, forget that. They are 12 to 15 count, which means they are 12 to 15 in the pound. And then what I'm going to do is devein them which is run my knife right down along the back. Then take a little vein out that’s right in there. I don’t want that. You can actually buy these in the store like this, but I just thought that it’s easy to do it, ill just do it myself. So secondly I want to do is butterfly them. Just run your knife right along in the back, and you want to open it up just sort of like a little book. And then I'm going to put them in a dish, the little tails are going to stand up like that, and also they’re very even it’s going to cook very quickly because it’s half the thickness. Okay that’s it for the shrimp In to the big bowl and add some great flavors. And okay, now really simple marinate gives it a lot of flavor. White wine, two table spoons of white wine, three table spoons of olive oil, two teaspoons of salt, one teaspoon of pepper. Toss it all together, and next one we’ll make this incredible crispy topping with Japanese bread crumbs. So I need one and a half sticks of butter, and that lots and lots of garlic for huge close garlic. We’re just going to chop them up, you won’t mince garlic because nobody wants to take a big bit out of garlic. Okay, right in with the butter. The next thing is a shallot, it is a very big shallot so using one big shallot or if you have smaller ones, too. Just a rough chop, dice it. Okay that’s one very big shallot. Now lots of fresh herbs; three table spoons of Italian parsley, it’s an Italian dish you got Italian parsley. Okay just rough chop, Italian parsley really does have a little more flavor than the curly parsley. Okay so that’s about three tablespoons right in the bowl. Just give it a little texture—one teaspoon of fresh rosemary, just a pinch of it. We just want it to be very subtly in the background. So just a little pinch like one teaspoon, that should be enough. Okay now a little heat, curve a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and lots of lemon. And be sure you zest before you juice it, otherwise you can’t zest it. Okay so one teaspoon, lemon, parsley, garlic how bad can it be? Okay that should be about a teaspoon. Right into the bowl, two tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, just add a little bit of liquid and catch the seeds. Next, an egg yolk and that’s going to bind it. Mesh it together, and then we’re going to add Panko which is Japanese bread crumbs. They are served very light and airy, but if you can’t find them you can always use bread crumbs. I find they are available in sea food shops and specially stores but I actually find them in the grocery store now. Okay two thirds of cup of Japanese bread crumbs or bread flakes, so much flavor in this topping. Okay time to arrange the shrimps in the dish. So I’ve got a great tan dish, it’s about 14 inches long and it’s not very deep but it’s like an inch and a half. But you can really use any size, this is perfect for two pounds of shrimp. So I'm going to take the cut part of the shrimp and just put it right down flat in the dish with the tail curving up and in, concentric circles. All the way round the outside of this dish. And so now the shrimps are really, they’re quite thin and they’ll cook really quickly, there I’m taking a little time when I'm getting ready for a party. I just hate cooking when my friends are there so I find this very relaxing. And the other thing is I never try out a new dish on my friends. I heard they even do it with Jeffrey. When I'm entertaining I want to be really sure that the dish is exactly the flavor I want it to be, and it usually takes one or two tries. Okay take what’s left, olive oil and the white wine, salt and pepper. Pour it over the top. Now I'm ready for the toppings, this is the good stuff. And I'm just going to crumble it all over the top, so if I'm going to make this in advance, I would make it to this point and then refrigerate it. And then bake it before my friends got there. This is so delicious that I want you to see how fabulous it is when it comes out of the oven. Okay in to the oven forty and 25 degrees for about ten minutes and all it’s going to need is spritz of fresh lemon juice the minute it comes out of the oven. God this smells so fabulous.