When I first moved to Portland in 1998, I was disappointed with the Chinese food because I couldn't find three of my favorite dishes- cold noodles with sesame (peanut) sauce, scallion pancakes, and shrimp toast. I started making the cold noodles right away - couldn't live without them - and several years later mastered the scallion pancake, but shrimp toast was much more intimidating because it was deep fried. As much fun as it is to recreate restaurant dishes, I usually steer clear of the deep frying.
Recently I decided I had to figure out how to make shrimp toast, and used a simple recipe found online. It had shrimp, an egg to bind, chopped scallion, fresh grated ginger and other seasonings, and the mixture was pulsed into a paste in the food processor. One tablespoon of the paste was applied to the top side of quartered bread triangles with the crusts cut off, and the top sides were dipped in breadcrumbs to coat.
The deep frying was quick and easy. I fried the shrimp side down first, turned when golden, and drained. That's all there was to it- just took a minute or two per side, really quick! It was amazing, and the thing I discovered is I can freeze and reheat them - just 12 minutes at 375 degrees. Finding "Duck Sauce" for dipping was another story...apparently that's not a thing in the Pacific Northwest!
No comments:
Post a Comment