Grijze Garnalen or Gray (Dutch) Shrimps

If there is something I go crazy for in Belgium and the Netherlands, it is surely the Grijze Garnalen ... or, vulgarly called, gray Dutch shrimps. I love them in every possible way, but it is quite some work to use them as ingredients as they are small and peeling is way too much work. Yes, I could buy them peeled ... but I would loose the taste.
Anyway, they are gray ... but not so gray (see the photo). Last Saturday we spent the day walking on the beach and we watched fishermen catching them. The method is simple: get a net attached to a solid frame and pull the net in deep water by hand or with an horse. Get back ashore, remove everything which is not a shrimps and boil them immediately to preserve the taste. It was quite interesting to see the entire action ... if you are curious simply check my photo gallery (link) where the photos will give you a flavor of what we saw.
It was a nice sunny day (30C+ degrees ... yes in Belgium). Quite crowded and lots of shrimps in the nets. Overall, we enjoyed ... it was only a pity we could not find where the tasting was taking place before going home. So we saw them alive, but not cooked ...
Ah! In case you look at the photos ... the typical dress code for a shrimp fisherman is in yellow ... not black or red, yellow!! Elke was kind of very (often) specific on this point !!