Shrimp, lots of garlic and a little heat: Gambas al Ajillo

The showstopping flavor of this popular Spanish tapas belies how easy it is to make. Recipe below.

WE OFTEN TALK ABOUT WHAT INSPIRES OUR COOKING. This dish began its circuitous route to our table with flamenco. Like pretty much everyone, we are seeking out performances online—music, dance, stand-up, anything—as live, in-person shows are still not happening. Most recently, we happened on flamenco performed in a narrow Spanish bar in Sevilla, Spain—and in the bar’s tiny kitchen and in the plaza in front of the bar.

Israel Galván is a world-renowned flamenco dancer and choreographer. His inventive work pushes the boundaries of the traditional form. In Maestro de Barra (Bar Master), the videotaped performance shared by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, Galván’s dance is accompanied by a patron drumming his hands on the bar, the bar owner singing the menu, the clattering of the dishwasher scrubbing pots in the kitchen, workers clearing the tables from the plaza. We were transfixed. We were also ready to eat any number of things the bar owner had sung out. In that bar. In Sevilla.

Fast forward a few days. A photograph by James and Karla Murray caught my eye: a restaurant, named Sevilla, in Manhattan. The New York-based husband and wife team has an ongoing project of beautifully documenting storefronts and other built environments, mostly in New York. They noted with relief that the venerable Spanish restaurant had just reopened.

As much as I obsess over all things New York, I had never heard of this restaurant. In moments, I was on their website, reading the menu. I could almost hear the Spanish bar owner singing it. One note that kept playing again and again throughout the menu was ajillo, which they translate as hot garlic oil. They cook many things in it, but once I saw shrimp, I was pretty sure we would be making some version of this dish.

What sealed the deal was talking to our friend Kevin. You may remember Kevin from the Spanish take on gin & tonics we shared a couple of years ago. Now in the time of the pandemic, our get togethers take the form of “cocktails with Kevin,” as we call them—weekly, wide-ranging conversations via FaceTime, cocktails in hand. When we told him we were considering making shrimp ajillo, he not only knew the dish, but proclaimed it one of the best things he’s ever eaten in Spain.

Gambas al Ajillo—shrimp ajillo—is one of those secret weapon dishes, showstopping delicious and ridiculously simple to make. Cook some sliced garlic and crushed red pepper flakes (LOTS of both) in olive oil for a minute; add paprika, lemon juice, sherry and shrimp, and cook for another few minutes; top with parsley and done. Serve with crusty bread for soaking up the juices and you’ll have guests elbowing each other out of the way for the last bits.

One last thing before the recipe, a few notes about our inspirations. First, we strongly urge you to see Israel Galván’s Maestro de Barra. UCLA is streaming it here through May 31. You’ll have to sign up, but they make it painless (you can make a donation or not, your choice). We also encourage you explore more photography by James and Karla Murray. On their YouTube channel, they highlight small independently owned businesses and restaurants in NYC, Miami and beyond. And finally, Kevin. Yeah, no, we’re not sharing him. But we do look forward to making this dish for him when we can all finally get back together again.

Print Pin

Gambas al Ajillo

The showstopping flavor of this popular Spanish tapas belies how easy it is to make.

Course Appetizer, Tapas

Cuisine Spanish

Servings 4 as a starter

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 10 cloves garlic, thinly sliced (see Kitchen Notes)
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons dry sherry optional
• 1 pound shrimp, deveined and peeled, tails left on (or taken off—see Kitchen Notes)
• salt
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• slices of baguette for sopping up the sauce

Instructions

• Heat the olive oil over a medium flame in a pan large enough to hold the shrimp in one layer. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper flakes and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
• Add the paprika, lemon juice and sherry, stirring to combine, and increase the heat to medium-high. Salt lightly.
• Working quickly, add the shrimp and cook, turning once, until pink and just cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes—or a little longer if the shrimp are particularly big. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, if needed.
• Transfer shrimp to a serving platter with a slotted spoon and pour the sauce in the pan over it. Top everything with the parsley.
• Serve warm or at room temperature with slices of baguette for soaking up the sauce.

Kitchen Notes

Slice the garlic, don’t mince it. Some recipes call for mincing, but slices make it easy to avoid scooping up a blast of garlic in a bite. It’s also less likely to burn when cooking it.

Tails, no tails? If I’m cooking shrimp to be eaten with a fork—say, in a pasta—I remove the tails. But in dishes where the shrimp is finger food, the tails make elegant handles.

Liz’s Crockery Corner. Marion here. Okay, fine, this week, Liz’s Crockery Corner isn’t about crockery. It’s about the lid of my mother’s cast iron Dutch oven, which I believe she bought back in the 1960s. We use this simple, practical thing all the time. We use the whole Dutch oven for oven braising and for baking round loaves of bread, and we use the lid, upside down, on its own, as a low skillet—it is very popular with us for making English muffins. Turns out it’s also wonderful for serving these brilliant shrimp.