A Good Captain Goes Down With The Shrimp
Yeah, it’s official: I’m going the Bob’s Burgers route and sub-titling every recipe with a really cheesy pun/dad joke. I love that show so much and this is going to be my homage to The Belchers. If possible, the pun should tie into any weird preface or story that precedes the recipe but I think more often than not that will be too difficult for my coffee-addled brain to neatly put together so I’ll just plow ahead in a jittery whirlwind of caffeinated keystrokes and disregard the niceties. Luckily for you, though my recipes aren’t just a burger with a single random ingredient thrown on top! (Sorry, Bob…)
While the former may be true, I do pride myself in simple and easy recipes. Ya’ll should know that by now. This one right here, my friends, is definitely no exception to that ubiquitous trend. This is a recipe where you can give yourself (1x original recipe) or your family (2x – 3x original recipe) the 30 Minutes Or Less Guarantee. Hopefully not like that movie, though.
⏰ Total time: 10 mins prep / 12 mins cooking
🔪 Makes: 4 servings
Ingredients
- cooking spray (is this really an ingredient?)
- 1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- salt, divided
- 1 pinch ground black pepper, divided
- 1 ½ pounds uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and de-veined
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 3 tablespoons butter, cubed
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
Directions
🍴 Step 1
Preheat oven to 400 and line a 12-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Bust out that secret “ingredient” (cooking spray) and use it to grease the pan/parchment.
🍴 Step 2
Place asparagus on the prepared baking pan and drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Sprinkle with garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; toss until they’ve got a nice even blanket on ’em. Arrange them so they’re all laying next to each other in a single layer on one side of the pan, like some sort of well-seasoned asparagus lawn. We’ll fill the gap in later with some friends.
🍴 Step 3
Bake your asparagus lawn in your preheated oven until they soften up a bit. This should only take about 5 minutes.
🍴 Step 4
After they’ve been slightly tenderized, take them out and place your shrimp on the side of the pan that’s still vacant. Drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and smoked paprika; toss until they also have a nice coat of seasoning. They might not look like a well-seasoned lawn but when you put them next to your asparagus grass it’s kind of like surf and turf! Right? Get it? …No? Okay, moving on. Top your asparagus lawn and shrimp with cubed butter.
🍴 Step 5
Roast everything in the oven for about 5-7 minutes, depending on the size of your shrimp. You can always tell when shrimp is done perfectly as soon as it becomes opaque.
🍴 Step 6
Pull everything out, drizzle with a little bit of lemon juice and any additional seasonings you may be fond of (Old Bay! Is Old Bay keto?) and serve it up!
🔪 Nutrition Information
- Calories: 300
- Protein: 30g
- Carbohydrates: 7g
- Fat: 17g
- Cholesterol: 281mg
- Sodium: 1500mg
