My first taste of Pickled Shrimp was at a SAS potluck Christmas party in 1980 when systems programmer Bill Blair brought a gallon jar of wonderful pickled shrimp. I ate far more than my share of them. The recipe below is from Saveur magazine’s October 2011 issue. Also keep in mind Gabrielle Hamilton’s fancier recipe for Pickled Shrimp in her cookbook Prune.
Says Saveur: Briny, faintly spicy pickled shrimp are a staple of Southern cuisine. In this Georgia-inspired version from from Hugh Acheson’s A New Turn in the South (2011), frozen raw shrimp are substituted for fresh. As Hugh notes in his comment below, if the shrimp remain covered with oil, they’ll last for “a good week in the fridge. The longer they sit in their pickle liquid, the picklier they get.”
2 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning
1 pound (26–30 count) medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
½ teaspoon celery seeds
¼ teaspoon allspice berries
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
⅓ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup packed flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon crushed red chile flakes
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
12 dried bay leaves
½ medium yellow onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
Bring Old Bay and 8 cups water to a boil in a 4-quart saucepan. Add shrimp, reduce heat to low, and cook until shrimp are pink, about 2 minutes. Drain and transfer to bowl of ice water to chill; drain again.
Finely grind celery seeds and allspice in a spice grinder; transfer to a bowl and stir in oil, juice, parsley, salt, chile flakes, garlic, and bay leaves. In a 1-quart glass jar, layer shrimp and onions; pour over oil mixture. Cover with lid; chill overnight before serving.
(You’d need to triple this recipe to fill a gallon jar.)