Shrimply Delicious!

I must say I've been eating a lot of seafood lately. Mainly because I said I'm going to give up red meat for Lent. So that leaves seafood, veggies and chicken. I'm not a big fan of the latter two, so seafood it is! =)

Here's a simple shrimp dish. In restaurants, it's more often than not listed as 'Grand Marnier Shrimp'. But it's also commonly known as 'Walnut Shrimp'. I didn't have walnuts, so I substituted pecans. I didn't eat the pecans though, I just added them for the picture! Hahaha!

GRAND MARNIER SHRIMP

Ingredients:
1 dozen medium-sized shrimps, shelled and deveined
2 large eggs (egg white only)
4 Tbsps corn starch
3 Tbsps mayonnaise
2 Tbsps honey
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 Tbsp condensed milk
canola oil, for deep frying
pecans, for garnish

Heat oil in a small sauce pan.

In a bowl, mix together the egg white and corn starch. Dip the shrimp in the batter. Make sure you coat each shrimp well. Once oil is hot enough, put the shrimp in the pan one piece at a time. Make sure you don't overcrowd them. Fry until golden brown in color. Put in a plate lined with paper towel to seep out the excess oil.

In a separate bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, honey, lemon juice and condensed milk. Dip each shrimp in this mixture to lightly coat them. (As an alternative for those who are tamad like me, dump all the shrimps in the bowl, cover it then shake until the shrimps are well-coated with the mixture.)

Put the shrimps back on the plate and garnish with pecans.

Best eaten when hot para crunchy pa! ;)

Yummy in my Tummy!

Uh-oh, I’m not off to a good start at all… four days before the month ends and I find myself writing only the second entry in this blog. I was hoping to make at least one entry a week, but no such luck. I blame lack of time and laziness – though if I have to be honest, it’s mainly due to the latter. =)

A friend of mine (hi Debs!) suggested that I post some recipes that they can try themselves. So here’s one…

In my goal to try and lose some weight, I have decided to lessen my rice intake. But being a typcal Filipina, I can hardly eat a meal without rice! And since I'm not a fan of salads and sandwiches, I'm always on the lookout for other rice-less dishes that will interest me.

I was watching the Food Network and saw Michael Chiarello preparing his Crespelli “Short Stacks” with Shredded Chicken and Balsamic BBQ Sauce. Too bad they don’t have a picture on the website, but it pretty much looks like a stacked quesadilla. It looked good, but it entailed too much work for me. I don’t really feel like cooking the crepe and then baking it, nor do I want to make a BBQ sauce from scratch. So I decided to do a little variation. I basically used the crepe recipe he provided, but cut it in half and adjusted the liquid measurement a litte. Then, instead of filling the crepes with the chicken mixture, stacking them up and baking them, I just assembled them like you would a lumpia.

SHREDDED CHICKEN CREPE

For the Chicken Filling:
200 grams shredded roasted chicken
1/2 - 1 cup BBQ sauce (I used Hunt's Honey Mustard BBQ sauce)

Mix the chicken and BBQ sauce and set aside. You can adjust the sauce quantity according to your preference. I like mine swimming in sauce so I put a lot. =)

For the Crepe:
1 large egg
2/3 cup milk
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 stalk scallion, finely chopped (if you don’t like scallions, then leave it out)

Whisk the egg and milk in a medium bowl. Melt 1 Tbsp butter over low-medium heat until it turns lightly brown. Whisk the melted butter into the egg and milk mixture. Add the flour, scallion, salt and pepper. Whisk lightly for 15 seconds (just enough to eliminate the lumps, do not overwork the batter). Consistency should be a little thinner than a pancake batter. If it’s still too thick, add a little more milk.

Heat a skillet and coat it with a little bit of butter. Add enough batter to thinly coat the bottom of the skillet (about 1/3 cup). Remove it from the heat and tilt it around to evenly coat the bottom with the batter. Cook for about a minute and a half (you know the drill – just like cooking pancakes, wait until you see bubbles popping before flipping it), then flip it and cook the other side for about a minute more.

Remove the crepe from the pan, and immediately put some of the shredded chicken (how much depends entirely up to you) in the middle, fold the crepe on each side, fold the bottom flap of the crepe over the filling and roll it up.

Then repeat the process until you finish your batter. Depending on how big you make your crepes, this is good for 3-4 crepes.

That’s it. It’s simple, but filling! Yummy! =)