Recipe and Method for salt fried shrimp

[shinju]

I've just gotten an order of wild shrimp for the father's day and would like to make Chinese style salt fried shrimp with shells on. I don't even know the name of the dish, just that it is fried or stir fried shrimp with shells. What I really liked about this dish is that it really brought out the flavor of good shrimp. Any idea on how to make this or it's method?

[sheetz]

Salt and Pepper Shrimp

Adapted from a recipe by Eileen Yin Fei Lo

1/2 pound medium large shrimp (about 12), shells slit in the back and deveined

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 cups water

1 T plus 1/2 tsp salt

2 T cornstarch

1 quart peanut oil

1 tablespoon thinly sliced chilies

1 green onion, thinly sliced

1. Rub the shrimp with the baking soda and refrigerate for at least 30 min.

2. Add water and 1 T salt to a pot and bring to a boil.

3. Blanch the shrimp for 10 seconds, then drain and immediately plunge into ice water to stop the cooking.

4. Remove shrimp from ice water and coat with the cornstarch, shaking off excess.

5. Heat oil in a wok to 350F and fry shrimp for about 1 minute until crisp. Remove shrimp and pour off excess oil from the wok.

6. Heat the wok over medium high heat and add the 1/2 tsp salt, chilies, and green onion. Stir for 30 seconds, then toss in the shrimp, stirring until the shrimp is coated with the seasonings.

7. Remove from heat and serve over jullienned iceberg lettuce.

This is a variation I made of this dish, leaving out the chilies and green onion, and adding a 1/4 tsp of ground sichuan peppercorns. The shrimp are crispy and you can actually eat the shells!

[jo-mel]

They look great sheetz!

When the shells are really crispy, they have a flavor that fried shelled shrimp just can't match.

I never thought of using Sichuan papper. I'll have to keep that in mind.

[michael_g]

1. Rub the shrimp with the baking soda and refrigerate for at least 30 min.

2. Add water and 1 T salt to a pot and bring to a boil.

3. Blanch the shrimp for 10 seconds, then drain and immediately plunge into ice water to stop the cooking.

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That's a good looking recipe and a great photo. Do you have any idea what the baking soda and blanching do? I've never seen it before.

[Ben Hong]

Do you have any idea what the baking soda and blanching do?  I've never seen it before.

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Gives great mouth feel. Gives the shrimp that "explosive" crunch when you bite into it. Cooked normally shrimp has a tendency to be slightly chewy.

[sheetz]

The baking soda is applied to shrimp with the shells still on, so that step may primarily be to make the shells crisper. I'lll try to do a side by side comparison next time and see if I can notice a difference. As for the blanching, Lo says it's to remove some of the liquid from the shrimp, so I suppose doing this would also improve crispiness.

Edited June 14, 2007 by sheetz (log)

[shinju]

Wow Sheetz - thank you so much for the recipe. Your's look great. Very interesting technique.....I have never seen one that calls for pretreating shrimp with baking soda and blanched first. Very interesting. I plan to make this tomorrow and will let you know how it turns out. Again, much appreciated!

[michael_g]

Gives great mouth feel. Gives the shrimp that "explosive" crunch when you bite into it. Cooked normally shrimp has a tendency to be slightly chewy.

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"Explosive crunch"? Are you eating these with the shells on? (I'm not horrified, just curious!)

[whiterabbit]

Nice Execution and photo! Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's book is indispensible. My family is from Guangzhou (fka Canton) and they are total food snobs. I have made this dish and it rivals that of any in Chinatown - the shells indeed are crunchy, and the baking soda treatment I have seem for other seafood, including scallops and squid. you can eat them with shells on or off, but the shells on keeps the moisture in the shrimp, and eating all together gives the best texture treat.

[insomniac]

I love them with the legs left on, great crunch

[Dejah]

Toisanese say, "tui how/hi" - crisp/ crunch/explosive.

[shinju]

Today I made the salt fried shrimp using wild caught shrimp from the Gulf. The shells were much harder than the farmed shrimp when slicing the backs. Roasted Sichuan peppercorn and ground partially and added minced pepper and onion as instructed. The taste was great, but only thing I did not get it right was heat of my oil. I should have gotten the oil hotter and cooked the shrimp longer than 1 minute. My guests loved the shrimp, but I thought they were a bit too greasy due to lower temperature of my oil (darn it). Next time I'll get it right. Here is results:

[sheetz]

Looks terrific, shinji!