Sesame Shrimp Toast
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Shrimp toast is also known as sesame prawn toast. It is a popular dim sum that you will order in HK tea house restaurant or comes as an appetizer in Australian and American Chinese restaurant. Originally, this recipe is a mix of Chinese and British influence though. Very interesting and delicious.
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Ingredients
- 1 lb of shrimp
- 1 tsp of grated ginger
- 3 cloves of grated garlic
- 1 tbsp of soy sauce
- 2 tsp of oyster sauce
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 1/2 tsp of sweet paprika or any other chili powder that you have
- some white pepper to taste can also use black pepper
- a drizzle of sesame oil
- 1.5 tbsp of cornstarch
- 1 egg white
- 2 oz of bamboo shoot can also use water chestnut, diced cabbage, or lotus root
- 2 oz of carrot
- 1/3 cup of diced scallion
- 1/3 cup of diced cilantro
- vegetable oil enough to pan-fry
- 8 pieces of white toast
-
2-3 tbsp of sesame seeds
Directions
You will need some shrimp. Smash and hand chop them. Do not use pre-cooked shrimps. That will not work well in this recipe.
- Now, let’s season the shrimp: 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 2 tsp of oyster sauce, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of grated ginger, 3 cloves of garlic, some white pepper to taste, 1.5 tbsp of cornstarch, 1/2 tsp of sweet paprika or any other chili powder you like. Drizzle in 2 tsp of sesame oil and add in one egg white. Egg white will add moisture into the mixture and help to bind everything together. Oh, don’t waste the egg yolk. Use it to make my General Tso’s chicken, it is delicious.
Mix everything until well combined and keep stirring the meat within one direction for about 5 minutes. All the liquid should be gone and the shrimp meat becomes sticky. Cover that and let it sit in the fridge for 20 minutes.
While waiting, let’s diced some bamboo shoot and carrot. Bamboo shoot is one of my favorite ingredients to put into the shrimp toast. It gives you a nice crunchiness. You can look for it in some oriental markets. I tried to buy it on Amazon but it was too expensive. So, you can use other vegetables to replace it such as water chestnut, cabbage, lotus root, or just simply skip it. Not a big problem.
For the aromatics, I am using a bunch of cilantro and 2 pieces of scallion. Finely diced them.
Now, take the shrimp mixture out of the fridge and dump in all your veggies. It looks like too many vegetables. If you are a meat eater, you can decrease the vegetable amount. But I like to balance my diet. So, it is up to you. Mix them well. Switch to a rubber spatula and scrape down the side of the bowl. Now you are ready to take out your toast. Yes, the most basic white toast. I saw many recipes tell you to trim off the edge of the toast. Why? I don’t like to waste food so I will just use it the way it is.
Spread the shrimp past on the toast. For those people who are on a keto diet, you can use sliced eggplant, shitake mushroom to replace the toast.
Once you finished all the toast, sprinkle some sesame seed all over the shrimp side and slightly press them down so they stick to the toast. Because you don’t want them to fall off while pan-frying. You can tilt the shrimp toast and give it a few light shakes to see if there is any sesame seed falling. If not, you are good to go.
I like to use a heavy duty cast iron skillet to do this because it cooks the food evenly. I saw a lot of recipes tell you to use 1/2 inch of oil, so you can sort of deep fry your shrimp toast which is like a restaurant way to do it. But really, all you need is a general amount of oil to cover the bottom of the pan.If you use too much oil, you will end up having a toast that is soaked with oil.
Place your shrimp toast in. Fry it on low heat or else it gets burned easily. It will take about 3 minutes on one side. Shrimp is easy to cook so you just go with the color. Once it is nice and golden brown you can flip it over to fry the other side. Keep the heat at low because we want to slowly toast the bread side until it is crusty.
- Cut the toast in any shape you like. Serve as an appetizer or as breakfast toast with some sausage and egg. Enjoy
Recipe Note
- SOUPED UP TIP: Shrimp toasts are freezer friendly. You can make a lot during the weekend and freeze it separately. Whenever you want to eat them again, don’t even need to defrost them, just directly fry them on medium-low heat until both sides are golden brown. Quick, easy, and delicious.
