Potatoes are so much better when you stuff them and bake them again! Pair them with meaty and savoury shrimp for a macro-friendly dinner.

Time: 4/5
Twice-baked potatoes need to be baked twice.

Effort: 4/5
Deveining and skewering shrimp always takes longer than I expect …

Surf and Spuds

I fell in love with twice-baked potatoes after a particularly memorable date night dinner where I served one as a side dish. Chief among its virtues are how you can season it throughout its substance, a serious upgrade from the more simple jacket potato. The opportunity to brown some cheese on top and create some crispy potato skin while you’re at it are also significant fringe benefits.

As for the shrimp skewers, that’s partly because they’re a great low-calorie source of protein that packs plenty of flavour. But it’s also because we grabbed a huge 1kg box of shell on frozen shrimp, and I need to do something with the shrimp bodies after I used the heads for a higher purpose.

These are best cooked on the grill, but I don’t have one and so the next best thing is to sear them fast and hard in the stainless steel skillet which I can chuck in the dishwasher. I also think the skewers add visual interest to the presentation, and it makes eating this diet-friendly date night dinner a bit more hands-on and fun.

Leaving the shells on was a conscious choice. Although I typically prefer my shrimp already peeled, leaving the shells on protects the delicate flesh of the shrimp from the harsh heat of the pan. The shell also holds a lot of meaty and savoury juices in the nooks and crannies, which make them fun to suck on.

That said, whether the shrimp is peeled or not, they need to be deveined. And deveining shrimp is always more work than I remember it to be. So, like the garlic butter shrimp with glass noodles, I might reserve this recipe for when I can afford the time.

Posts since the last recipe that was actually served with rice: 2

Dramatis Personae

Served 2.

• 600g shell on shrimp

Shrimp are about 50% shell by weight, so this comes down to a raw weight of 150g peeled shrimp per person. It’s a bit light if it’s the main part of the meal, but I am counting on the potatoes to do the heavy lifting.

Save the heads and keep them in the freezer! They add tons of flavour to soups and broths, or to pasta dishes like this shrimp shell enhanced Pasta Aglio e Olio.

• 2 potatoes

Can be as large or as small as you like, although I have to say that there is a pragmatic limit to how small you can go – it would take a lot of skill and patience to hollow out a tiny new potato.

• 2 slices of American cheese
• 2 tbsp kewpie mayonnaise 

Fat is flavour! The mayonnaise did exactly what you expected it to. The half-slice of cheese I laid on top of each potato browned up beautifully. But to be honest, I couldn’t really taste the rest of the sliced cheese that I mixed into the potatoes. Oh well, live and learn.

• 2 tbsp garlic powder
• 2 tbsp powdered ranch
• 1 tbsp oil
• Lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste 

• 1 head broccoli

Always eat your veggies! You see me cooking two heads, but that’s because I have plans for what to do with them later this week.

Executive summary

1. Scrub potatoes well. Rub the skins with oil and salt, and bake in the oven at 180C/350F for an hour or until tender.
2. Once cool enough to handle, cut the top off the potatoes and dig out the flesh.
3. Mash the potato insides, and mix in the seasonings (except lemon juice). Stuff them back into the potato skins. Everything up to here can be made in advance.
4. Top each stuffed potato with a half-slice of cheese and bake again at 180C/350F for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is browned.
5. Remove the heads, and cut along the back of each shrimp. Devein, then skewer the shrimp. Coat them in oil, salt, and pepper.
6. Wash and cut the vegetables, and reserve.
7. Get a pan on high heat. Sear shrimp on both sides, then stir fry vegetables in the same pan.
8. Squeeze lemon juice over the shrimp. Assemble and serve.

Play by Play

Last things first. I’m doing this ahead of time so I save on stress when dinner time comes. The sliced cheese is only here because it’s already in my fridge; believe me when I say I’d much rather have some real cheese on hand, but waste not want not.

Potatoes get scrubbed, oiled, salted and baked. Took about 45 minutes for these relatively large ones.

Eviscerate, season, and re–stuff. At this point, I covered the whole thing with cling film and stuck it in the refrigerator. See you tomorrow ~

Shrimp defrosted, groceries brought. Time to cook! The oven can start preheating while I deal with other business.

Forget the potatoes in the oven, wash and cut the broccoli. I eat the stems too, after trimming off the woody outsides.

On the the shrimp. I’m saving the heads for something else, so away they go. Shrimp is almost half head, so that makes things less bulky and easier to work with.

Kitchen shears are really the best tool to devein shrimp with. Cutting along the back allows you to get the guts out, and it makes the shell much easier to peel off down the line.

The bowl is dirty anyway, so I’m tossing the shrimp with oil, salt and pepper right inside of it (feel free to make a meme about how I oil my shrimp, not my pan). They go on the skewers right afterwards.

I don’t have a grill, so into the pan it goes. 2 or 3 minutes each side is all it really needs.

I cook my broccoli right in the same pan. There’s flavour in the pan, and the moisture from the vegetables help deglaze the pan so it makes doing the dishes much easier. There’s plenty of extra veg here for tomorrow.

The potatoes were done for some time now, they’ve just been hanging out in the oven staying warm. The cheese has browned very nicely on the top.

Dinner time! It might be a typical weekend, but nothing stops me from fancying it up with some soda water in wine glasses to make it a bit more of an elevated experience.

The lids for the potatoes get super crispy during the second bake, and the shrimp stay nice and moist because the shells protect the flesh from the hard sear. Sucking the juice out from between the little legs was the best part of the meal.

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