When I was growing up, my parent’s pantry and refrigerator looked pretty different from my friends. We had all the American staples- mayo, mustard, ketchup, hot sauce and A1 steak sauce- but there were some additions (that I never gave a second thought to) that childhood friends would ask questions about.

Jars of ‘mam ca’ (fermented fish), pickled lotus, salt cured eggs, and tiny dried shrimp were mixed in with the Heinz and Miracle Whip. 

The dried shrimp in particular was an ingredient that saw a lot of use, and even when I moved into my first apartment in college, it found a place next to the dill pickles and cheap beer. Sometimes, I'd just muddle a few small shrimp up with soy sauce and hot peppers to eat over rice. It was a rudimentary dish that reminded me of home and also fit my broke lifestyle.

These days, the fridge is full of fermented and pickled veggies, fruit preserves, wild game charcuterie and Eastern European dairy products. But there’s still a bottle of ketchup and Duke’s mayonnaise on the door shelf- right next to the dried shrimp.

This ubiquitous ingredient is used in a lot of Vietnamese dishes, especially seafood based soups. It’s somewhere between anchovies and parmesan- salty and full of umami, but with a distinct oceany flavor. It’s great for any dish that needs a mild, seafoody complexity.
Even though dried shrimp has been a staple for me my whole life, I’d never thought to catch and dry my own. Historically, we live too far north for shrimping- generally, they’re caught in waters from North Carolina southward. But in recent years, they’ve been making their way up the Chesapeake Bay, and in numbers that have surprised just about everyone who sees it. So when my buddy invited me to go out shrimping with him, I said yes, expecting to yield a few pounds. We came back with 60 pounds, of all sizes. We sorted them out, and I kept the smallest ones for drying.

The method here is simple: brine, then dry the shrimp. The smaller the shrimp the better. 

Dried Shrimp

Prep Time: 10 minutes active, 10 hours inactive

Ingredients:

Small shrimp, shell on (head on)

1 cup salt

1 gallon water

Method

Dissolve the salt into the water and refrigerate until cold. Add the shrimp and allow to brine overnight. Drain the next day and shake off excess water. Spread shrimp out evenly on dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 145F for 2 hours, then decrease temperature to 120-125 for 8+ hours. You can’t really over dry them- they are done when they snap in half easily. Allow to cool to room temperature and store in an airtight container or refrigerate.

The shrimp we used are a little bigger than the dried ones we usually buy. For most of our recipes we’ll pulse them in a blender or food processor to break them up into smaller pieces.