Shrimp Toast

Prawn paste spread on stale bread and fried paste side down.

Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains shellfish.

Ingredients

• 300 g raw prawns, peeled
• 6 slices white bread, a day or two old, crusts off
• 1 egg white
• 2 teaspoons cornflour
• 2 spring onions, very finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon ginger, grated
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 4 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 800 ml vegetable oil, for deep frying, which is poured off

Method

1. USE BREAD THAT IS A DAY OR TWO OLD. Fresh bread is full of moisture and soaks up oil like a sponge; stale bread fries dry and crisp.
2. Chop the prawns to a rough paste — not a purée. Some texture should survive.
3. Mix them with the egg white, cornflour, spring onion, ginger, sesame oil, salt and pepper until it holds together.
4. Spread the paste thickly on each slice, right to the edges, and dome it slightly in the middle. Thin at the edge and it lifts away in the oil.
5. Press the pasted side firmly into the sesame seeds.
6. Heat the oil to 170C. Lower each slice in PASTE SIDE DOWN and fry 2 minutes, then turn and give the bread side 60 seconds. Paste down first: it needs the longer cooking, and putting the bread in first means it is already dark by the time the prawn is done.
7. Drain on a rack and cut each slice into four triangles.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes