Basic Butter-Glazed Shrimp

I have a sister-in-law in the Midwest who is a kitchen wonder - recipes inspired by her cooking certain to appear again and again on this blog. In the beginning of June (life before Grok, as it were), when she and her family were visiting, she introduced my husband's side of the family to the concept of buying, peeling, then butterflying fresh shrimp, glazing with a basic butter marinade, and then grilling to perfection.

It was one of those meals when even the most talkative in the crowd fell silent as we savored every bite. And though I've mentioned this before in my 4th of July post, I thought that the shrimp recipe merited a little extra post of its own, because it is so easy and so fast!

Basic Butter-Glazed Shrimp
Serves 3, conservatively, or 2 generously

Ingredients
1 lb. raw fresh or thawed shrimp, peeled, butterflied, tails removed (This process actually takes only about 10 minutes per pound)
1 stick butter (I prefer to use salted Kerrygold)
Drizzle honey (totally optional - but my sister-in-law had it in her original recipe so I include it here)
A few cranks of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder

Directions
Mix all ingredients. If grilling, skewer about 4-5 to a skewer, turned continuously on the grill, over a piece of foil if desired. (This is great also with pineapple on the skewers.) Do not overcook - once they are all pink and just a bit browned from the grill (see pic below), serve hot!

You can also sautee at high heat for about 5 minutes - but you must watch carefully and stir constantly. Take the pan off of the heat as soon as the grey is gone and the shrimp are all pink, lest you overcook and make them tough.

Here are the shrimp already peeled and tails gone, soaking up that butter. I'm about to butterfly them.

This is me butterflying a shrimp - just run a serrated knife along the "spine" to open it up a bit. This gives you more surface area for that delicious butter glaze to cover. ;)

Sauteed (last night's meal):

Grilled (though these had not been butterflied):

Serving suggestion with pineapple and asparagus
(great meal for nonprimal company):