How It's Made: Frozen Shrimp
Vocab level: C1
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People have been noshing on shrimp since the beginning of time,
but it hasn't always been an easy catch.
Wild stocks declined in the 20th century.
Shrimp farms emerged to supply what nature couldn't.
Factories processed the harvest, ensuring an abundance of ready to eat shrimp for the freezer.
Jumbo shrimp have long been big on the cocktail circuit.
Today it comes prepped and frozen, complete with cocktail sauce.
Just unwrap and thaw.
Shrimp cocktail is one of many ready to eat dishes prepared at this factory in Thailand.
Fresh from the farm, the shrimp undergoes a quick cold water rinse.
It then rides a perforated conveyor.
Rinse water drains through the holes in the conveyor to keep the shrimp from becoming soggy.
Still cool from the icy bath, the curly crustaceans spill off the conveyor into plastic baskets.
They weigh each basket and then transfer the shrimp to a larger tub.
To keep the chill on they add crushed ice between loads.
A temperature of ten degrees Celsius or less must be maintained throughout processing or quality will suffer.
It's now time for the inevitable, the deheading.
Using a metal tool that's like an open thimble,
workers pull the heads off the shrimp with a few quick tugs.
The heading line is a long and busy one.
The headless shrimp now travel to sizing rollers.
The space between the rollers is narrow at first and wider further down.
As the rollers spin, smaller shrimp fall through first and the larger ones continue on to fall through further down.
They accumulate in different piles on conveyors below.
This separates the shrimp into five size categories.
Out of the sorter, an employee samples the shrimp's temperature to confirm that it remains adequately chilled.
Deheaded and sorted by size, these shrimp are now ready to come out of their shells.
On the shelling line, some workers cut the tails off and others leave them on
because there's a market for both.
After they peel away the shell, they cut out the digestive tract that runs along the back.
It's often referred to as the vein because it looks like one.
Workers on this line peel and devein 800 shrimp an hour.
The shrimp then goes to different prep zones.
At this one, an employee dips tail on shrimp into an egg mixture and then dredges them in rice flour.
He sends them down the line to the next worker.
He rolls the floured shrimp in net rice paper.
As you can see, there's a bit of a trick to this.
He moistens the edges of the rice paper to seal the wrap.
The result is a spring roll appetizer that can be frozen until it's ready to be cooked and served.
In another area, a worker prepares a breaded recipe, again using shrimp with the tails still on.
This is finger food and with the tails on, the shrimp will be easier to grip.
He soaks it in seasonings and coats it in breadcrumbs.
Then he dips it in egg batter and breads it again.
The second coating of crumbs will give the shrimp extra crunch when fried.
The tray is now full and so it's over to the fry belt.
After a quick trip through hot oil, the breaded shrimp is perfectly fried.
All the shrimp, including this raw product, take a blustery ride through a freezer.
Spread evenly across the conveyor, they freeze individually rather than in big, icy clumps.
So you don't have to thaw a whole bunch to get a few shrimp.
The frozen shrimp falls into waste stations.
At the correct amount, the bottom opens to release them.
An ice glaze will protect them from freezer burn.
These frozen shrimp products are ready to leave the factory.
From the freezer to the oven to your taste buds.
With all the prep work done at the factory, these frozen shrimp products are quite a treat.
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