so my Father-n-Law gave me a good bit of rock shrimp shell on and still needing deveining ,i have never had any experience with said shrimp and i keep reading about how hard they are to clean do any of you guys or gals have any tips on making it any easier,also would i go about cooking basically the same as regular shrimp or do any of you have any fab recipes for them

I don't mess with them due to the difficulty in cleaning. The shells are too hard and most are not very big. Depending on the size you have, I would split them as you would a lobster as the shell is about as hard. Other than that, not sure what else you could do.

Maybe you can remove the heads and boil as you would regular shrimp and take a knife and scoop out the meat. Just thinking here.

As far as cleaning goes, its easy, but a pain in the arse. To shell them, remove the last section of shell next to the tail by flipping it "up", scrape off the legs, and then remove the rest of the shell. Harder to explain than it is to just do it. To de-vein, use a small, sharp knife and make a shallow cut lengthwise from head to tail, down the center of the back. You should see a black vein running the length of the shrimp. use your thumbnail to remove under cold running water. Not all will have it, so don't get to aggressive looking for it. After 3-4, you should have a pretty good idea how far to cut.

For cooking, use any recipe calling for shrimp. Good luck.

never had to clean them.........always gottem P/D. they do make a hell of a po'boy fried!

what are they ? (picture would be good :-)

never had any problems clening or shelling shrimp - what makes these so difficult ?

http://www.sms.si.edu/irlspec/images/Sicyon_breviA.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3148/2621836670_232826464e.jpg

They are alot thicker shelled critters. Think a lobster in the woodshed?

They are alot thicker shelled critters. Think a lobster in the woodshed?

pretty much. heading a few thousand pounds of those things will kill your hands w/out cotton gloves on.

if you plan on doing the knife peeling thing as irishchef suggested @ least have some cotton gloves on or a cutting glove.

you can also use kitchen shears or small diagonal snippers & cut down the center of the shell-it's a lot easier on the thumbs.

if you are boiling them-as rock shrimp are tiny,just squeeze the sides from the tail forward & they should pop right out.:thumb:

I've never had to clean them, but when I lived on the coast of Carolina there was a little mom and pop restaurant sitting right close to one of the shrimpin marina's and they made a rock shrimp dish that sold me forever on these things. I never see them up here though...great flavor!