I never really associated tacos with seafood until that first taste of an authentic Baja fish taco. A simple meal, the Baja fish taco, just fresh fish fried a little crispy and served in a fresh tortilla with some crunchy veggies and a spicy/cream sauce – but it shows you just how good fresh simply prepared seafood can be in a corn tortilla. And from that day on, I have relished the tastes of many takes on seafood tacos.

One of my favorites, and an incredibly easy dish to prepare, is shrimp tacos.

With some shrimp and corn tortillas on hand you can prepare this start to finish in 10 minutes, and have a great fresh meal on the table faster than you'd ever make it through that Taco Bell drive-through!

Crunchy Shrimp Tacos (A recipe for one, easily multiplied as needed)

• 200 grams (just under ½ a pound) of smallish shrimp (41-60 count works fine here) tails removed and cleaned if desired.
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 corn tortillas
• A small amount of vegetable oil for frying
• Salt
• ¼ of a small white onion, cut into slices
• Sour cream
• A spicy tomato based salsa. (Any tomato salsa that you like will work fine here. The best choices are salsas that are both spicy and a little bit sour. Here is a link to a recipe for grilled tomato (hot sauce) salsa, if you prefer to make your own).

Easy Steps

1. Heat a scant Tablespoon of oil over medium high in a heavy frying pan. While the oil is heating, sprinkle a couple good pinches of salt over the raw shrimp.
2. When the oil is hot, add in the shrimp all at once, and stir fry for about 1 minute. After 1 minute, add in the garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes, or until the shrimp are just cooked through.
3. Take a second small heavy frying pan and fill it with about 1/8 of an inch (A thin layer) of vegetable oil, and heat it over medium.
4. Spread the three corn tortillas out on your work surface, and divide the shrimp between the three.
5. Do not try to roll the shrimp tacos up until you are ready to add them to the oil, and even then, work one at a time. You want to avoid cracking the tortillas if you can help it, and corn tortillas get brittle with age.
6. When the oil has pre heated, take one tortilla and gently fold it in half. Grasp the top of the taco with kitchen tongs and place it slowly in the oil, vertically at first (If you think of a commercial hard taco shell as U shaped, then you will fry the bottom of the U first.)
7. After about 30 seconds, let the corn tortilla fall to one of its sides, and let cook until crisped, about 1 minute. Repeat with the remaining side and remove from the oil, draining off as much oil as you can. Repeat the process with the remaining two tortillas.
8. Once you get better at this you can do 2 or 3 at once, but taking it slow at first makes the venture a whole lot less stressful!
9. Place the three tortillas on a plate and serve them covered in hot tomato sauce, generous spoonfuls of sour cream and fresh thinly sliced onion. Rice and beans make great sides.

It's actually a very simple recipe. The frying instructions sound more complicated than the reality and the worst that can really happen is that a taco or 2 comes out slightly misshapen. It will taste just as good, I can assure you!

Also, if the only hard tacos you've ever had have been store-bought taco shells, you are in for a real surprise when you make your own. Fresh crispy fried corn tortillas are in a league of their own, and you WILL taste a huge difference.