Just before Halloween, I was on a Vietnamese recipe streak. Roast chicken, pork with rice noodles, and even desserts using Vietnamese coffee on the menu, and I had so much fun with them. I took a quick break from that cuisine to try some fun Halloween/Autumn recipes like the Hallowe’en Scream Swirl Bread! and White Pumpkin Pie. I simply had to try them! But I made this Tôm Rim (Vietnamese Caramelized Shrimp) back in September and wanted to get it posted before I dive into any Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes. Or maybe I’ll come up with some to use leftovers from the Halloween recipes… We shall see, but in the meantime enjoy!
This is a classic Tôm Rim recipe for glossy and fragrant Vietnamese Caramelized Shrimp. Enjoy the perfect balance of a thick, sweet and savory glaze!
The Ingredients
This Tôm Rim recipe calls for 1kg (2.2 lbs) of fresh prawns. Prawns aren’t easy to find for me, but shrimp are. In this case, I had a 1.5-pound bag of large shrimp (31-40/lb) in my freezer, just waiting to be used. The recipe notes say to leave the shells on for extra crunch, but these were already peeled and deveined. Believe it or not, I have tried shrimp with their shells on and didn’t enjoy the texture. I would have removed them even if the shrimp were fresh.
I also had most of the other ingredients. sugar, fish sauce, vegetable oil, pepper, salt (I used pink Himalayan just because I had it), and chicken bouillon powder were all in my pantry.
That left me to buy the fresh ingredients, and they were easy to find. Spring onion (a.k.a. scallion or green onion, shallot, garlic, and a serrano pepper were all waiting for me at my regular grocery store.
They didn’t stock dark soy sauce, so I ordered it. Lee Kum Kee Premium Dark Soy Sauce had lots of positive reviews and was reasonably priced at $7.00 for a 16.9-ounce bottle.
The Process
This recipe includes marinating the shrimp, but shrimp (and many types of seafood) marinate quickly. There’s not getting ready to make this and realizing it has to marinate overnight after you’ve begun. I hate it when that happens!
There are several steps for prepping the shrimp, but I was able to skip that since they came peeled and deveined. My prep work for the shrimp was thawing them in a bowl of cold water (about 10-15 minutes) and then removing their tails.
Marinade
I made the Tôm Rim marinade while the shrimp thawed, and it was a breeze. Just a little chopping, measuring, and stirring it all together. Next, I removed the tails from the shrimp before mixing them into the marinade.
I noticed that the ingredients for the marinade aren’t listed in the order they are used in the instructions. That caused a little lag since I had to hunt for the ingredients and amount instead of just going straight down the list. It’s not a huge deal, but it makes me more error-prone.
I prepped the remaining ingredients while the shrimp was marinated. Most of the ingredients went into the marinade, so there wasn’t much left to do. Just a little more chopping and some measuring so everything was ready when needed.
Cooking
I don’t have a wok, so I used a deep saute pan. The high sides keep everything inside the pan (for the most part). No shrimp flying out when my stir-frying gets a little too intense LOL!
I appreciated the recipe included a way to test whether the oil was ready. I have tons of disposable bamboo chopsticks left over from takeaway, so I made use of a pair to test the oil. It worked, and I’ll be using that trick again.
Cooking my Tôm Rim moved fast, and I was glad I had everything prepped and measured before I began. I tried to keep the shrimp moving like a stir fry, and I kept a close eye on the shrimp.
Although the shrimp were labeled “large”, they seemed small to me. I kept a close eye on them so they didn’t overcook—there’s no going back from that, and I don’t enjoy rubbery shrimp.
They released a lot of moisture right away and it made a ton of steam. But once the moisture evaporated, the sugar caramelized quickly, and the sauce thickened after six minutes.
I decided to add the fish sauce at that point instead of waiting another four minutes per the instructions. I kept stir-frying the shrimp for another two minutes before adding the spring onion and chili. All told, the shrimp cooked for 10 minutes instead of 15. The sauce was nice and thick so it clung to the shrimp nicely.
Timing
This recipe listed 30 minutes to prep, 20 minutes to marinate, 15 minutes to cook, and a total time of 1 hour 5 minutes. Here’s how my time was spent:
- 5 minutes to prep the shrimp
- 11 minutes to prep the marinade
- 20 minutes to marinate the shrimp
- 5 minutes to prep the remaining ingredients (done during marinating)
- 10 minutes to cook
- 46 minutes total
The shrimp I used were on the small side, so they cooked faster than the time listed. I’m not sure if their being peeled made a difference or if using shrimp instead of unpeeled prawns made a difference. A quick search says prawns are usually larger than shrimp, so that would explain the quicker cooking time. Otherwise, the times listed were accurate.
 was had a thick and sticky salty-sweet sauce and was so good served over rice!){kind=link}