Gambas al Ajillo--Sizzling Garlic Shrimp

For my birthday, we went to dinner at Solea, a fabulous tapas restaurant in Waltham.  If you live in the Boston area and haven't been, you need to try it!  It's one of my absolute favorite restaurants.

Ben, my mom, and I ordered six tapas to share.  We got sizzling garlic shrimp, scallops in saffron cream, lamb meatballs in truffle cream sauce, greens sauteed with pine nuts and raisins, and baked goat cheese.  Everything was amazing.  I ordered a blood orange sidecar to drink, which was delicious, and we started out snacking on a really good chickpea-porcini mushroom spread (my take on that coming soon).  The whole meal was great and I highly recommend everything we ordered.

I decided the sizzling garlic shrimp would be fun to recreate at home.  At Solea they serve them still bubbling in a small cazuela.  You could achieve the same effect by putting the shrimp into ramekins and sticking them under the broiler for a couple of minutes before serving.  If you try that, don't cook the shrimp all the way on the stovetop since they'll finish cooking under the broiler.

Ingredients (inspired by Solea, serves 4-6):

1/2 cup olive oil
10 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 pound raw shrimp, peeled, deveined, and tails removed, defrosted if frozen
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon paprika
Pinch or two of red pepper flakes, optional

Preheat the broiler, if using.  Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the garlic and saute, stirring frequently, for about five minutes, until the garlic is softened but not browned.

Add the shrimp, raise the heat to medium high, and sprinkle with salt, pepper, paprika, and red pepper.  Cook for three minutes on each side or until the shrimp are completely opaque.  Serve hot.  If you decide to broil the shrimp in individual ramekins, cook on one side in the skillet, flip over into the ramekins, top with some of the oil and garlic, and broil until opaque throughout, about 3 minutes.