BANG BANG SHRIMP
If you've ever been to Bonefish Grill, chances are you've eaten, and obsessed over their “Bang Bang Shrimp.” If you haven't ever been there, I'll let you in on what you're missing. The shrimp are served mainly as an appetizer, on a bed of lettuce, garnished with scallions. The shrimp are deep fried, and have a spicy, tangy sauce on them. They're delicious, and addictive. A quick Google search of the recipe brings up over 250,000 results. That's a lot of people trying to recreate the secret recipe. Several people I know have tried to make these themselves. Add me to that mix. I wanted to make shrimp tacos that were a little less ordinary, and figured that would be a perfect recipe to try. I didn't look through all 250k+ recipes to figure out how many different versions there were, because, as it turns out, they're all very similar. They differ a little here or there, but the gist is the same in most of them. I found one I liked, tweaked it, and loved the result. This is what I did...
Step 1: Go to the grocery store. I'm leaving out everything you need to do before then. Here's what you need for the meal...
The Shrimp - Shrimp. I used a bag of frozen, peeled, and deveined shrimp. They're not cooked, so they look gray not pink, you don't want shrimp that are already cooked, they'll turn out rubbery I hear. I got 41-50 count shrimp, a full pound. My understanding is that means there should have been between 41 and 50 in the bag, I didn't count though, so I can't verify that. I'll take their word for it.
The Breading – Milk, Corn Starch, and Panko. Panko is just fancy Asian bread crumbs.
The Sauce – Sriracha Sauce, Rice Vinegar, Mayonnaise, Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. Sriracha is often called cock sauce, because the most popular brand of sriracha has a rooster on it. I learned recently sriracha is not the brand, but rather the style of hot sauce. For Thai sauce I used Maggi Sweet Chili Sauce. The rice vinegar I used was Wegmans' brand. Wegmans is a popular grocery store in parts of New York, New England, and Pennsylvania.
The Frying – Oil. And some sort of device to fry in, a pan or deep fryer.
The Rest – If you want to make tacos, like I did, you need taco stuff. I used tortillas, tomatoes, green onions or scallions, jalapenos, cheese, sour cream.
Step 2: Preparation.
Part I: The Shrimp – The shrimp I got were frozen. I found out once before that if you throw frozen Potatoes O'Brien in a frying pan filled with hot oil you're going to get hot oil all over your body. You have to thaw the shrimp before you cook them. I just followed the directions on the package. When the shrimp were thawed, I placed them in a bowl of milk. You may lose your appetite at this point as I did. Something about shrimp in milk just looks gross to me. Don't worry, you'll get your hunger back. After they've sat in the milk a little bit proceed to bread them. Take two bowls or dredging stations or whatever you use, and put corn starch in one, panko in the other. Take a shrimp from the milk and dredge it through the corn starch, then dunk it back in the milk, then flop it around in the panko, and place it to the side, it's now ready to fry. I suggest putting them on a cookie sheet or something like that. Keep them separate from one another.
Part II: The Sauce – This is where you start to realize just how unhealthy this mix is. Delicious has a price, and in this case, that price may be heart disease. For a pound of shrimp I used a full cup of mayonnaise, into which you mix a quarter cup of Thai Sweet Chili Sauce, a quarter cup of sriracha, and two tablespoons of rice vinegar. You can use less sriracha if you don't want it to be very spicy, but it's important to use at least an eighth of a cup of the sriracha for the taste to be right. Stir it until it's uniform.
Part III: The Other Stuff – In my case, this was dicing and slicing the tomatoes, jalapenos, scallions, shredding lettuce, grating cheese as needed. I cheated and used the shredded iceberg lettuce package, and a package of shredded 'Mexican' style cheese. With jalapenos, you may want to wear gloves. I didn't and later when I was sticking my fingers in my girlfriend's eyes, which is something I do regularly, her eyes began to burn. I may be wrong, but I hear the membrane inside the jalapeno holding the seeds is the hottest part. So if you want less heat, just cut that part out and trash it, and only dice the fleshy skin part of the pepper.
Step 3: Cooking. When the oil is hot enough, which according to some people is 300 degrees, others say 350, you are ready to cook. I don't have a thermometer for oil, so I just looked at it and decided arbitrarily that it was hot enough. I was correct. So as I was saying, when the oil is hot enough, you're ready to fry! When I did this the first time, it was in a frying pan, and I would fry 6-8 shrimp at a time. I didn't bread all the shrimp at once before hand, I did it while I was cooking. I would coat the shrimp with the breading, and drop it in the pan. By the time I had a 4th shrimp coated, the 1st shrimp was ready to flip, and by the time the 7th or 8th shrimp went in, the 1stshrimp was done. It was about a minute and a half, then flip it and let it cook another minute and a half. The second time I made these, I used a “Fry Daddy” which is an electric deep fryer. For this I did 5-6 shrimp at a time no longer than 1 minute 20 seconds. That's all it took. I recommend a fryer of some sorts, since after I made these shrimp the first time, my girlfriend spent about an hour taking the stove apart to clean all the oil that splattered there, as well as on the cabinets, on the counters, and on the floor. It was in her apartment, so she was pretty much obligated to clean up, unless she wanted to live in filth.
Step 4: Eat up! As I said, I made shrimp tacos. Actually, the first time I made these, they were closer to shrimp burritos since I used large tortillas. I would coat the tortilla with sour cream, make a bed of shredded lettuce, put the diced jalapenos, tomatoes, scallions in, load 5 or 6 shrimp and cover liberally with cheese. This makes enough to feed 4 people I'd say. My girlfriend and I were able to get a dinner, a lunch, and a snack each out of it.
Shopping list – BANG BANG SHRIMP TACOS
1LB Frozen Shrimp 41-50 count
1 Package Taco Size Flour Tortillas
1 Bottle Sriracha Hot Sauce
1 Bottle Thai Sweet Chili Sauce
1 Container Mayonnaise
1 Bottle Rice Vinegar
1 Box Corn Starch
1 Box Panko Breading
1 Quart 2% Milk
1 Package Shredded Lettuce
2 Ripe Tomatoes
5-6 Jalapeno Peppers
1 Bunch Scallions (Green Onions)
1 Cup Sour Cream
1 8oz Package Shredded Cheddar Cheese
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