Almost-famous Spicy Fried Shrimp, Food Network Magazine April 2010
Served with steamed napa cabbage (mixed with leftover tofu shumai filling)
The shrimp recipe is a copy-cat recipe for "Bang Bang Shrimp" at a restaurant called Bonefish, which is supposedly very popular. When I read it, it reminded me of the honey-walnut shrimp we used to get at China Star restaurant near college. Looking at recipes for honey-walnut shrimp online, it seems to be mostly the same but with some condensed milk in the sauce and candied walnuts on top. Yum.
This was a fast recipe. The batter fried up really crispy, but once the sauce went on it was all totally limp, so that seemed like a waste. Might as well just grill them or something and save the fat. We pan fried in EVOO because we don't have vegetable oil... we probably should get some.
Meanwhile, the potato cake was a disaster. The whole time I thought about Bang Bang Shrimp I kept thinking about "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" so I guess it was inevitable that something had to be shitty shitty to go with the bang bang :-/ My cast-iron skillet hates me. I hit my head on its handle after bending over to get something. Everything sticks and burns, and it's just so heavy that the attempt to invert the potato cake onto a plate and then slide it back on to crisp up the other side failed miserably. Yes, eventually I was able to invert the pan onto a plate, but no, it didn't all come out as a nice cohesive unit. A thick layer of black potato was burned onto the pan. And this happened again with the other side when it was time to serve it. Oh well. It tasted fine, but was just soft, because the crispy parts were in the trash. I used one sweet potato and two normal potatoes to mix it up a little.
G liked the shrimp recipe, and I did too, although I think next time I would try to add a little condensed milk. And, I think I would just serve the crispy shrimp with the sauce on the side so it doesn't get soggy. I don't know if we will keep the potato cake recipe... we will need a better skillet first :-P How is the cast-iron skillet ever supposed to get seasoned if it just gets completely stuck to everything every time we use it, requiring us to wash it? Bah. We always rub some oil into it, but it's just pointless.
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