Shrimp Toast | Where have all the shrimp toast gone? | The Woks of Life

Hi everyone, I'm Sarah from the Walks of Life and today we are going to make a retro Chinese American classic appetizer, shrimp toast. Shrimp toast is quickly going out of favor. I think I'm seeing it on fewer and fewer Chinese restaurant menus and I'm not sure why because it's really really good. Shrimp toast, if you've never had it, is shrimp that has been really finely chopped, almost like when you go to dim sum and there are those like shrimp stuffed peppers. Instead of putting it in a vegetable, you make it into this sort of paste-like texture. Everything just gets mixed up in a food processor with some herbs like cilantro and scallions, some ginger, some seasonings, and the secret ingredient that's kind of an optional ingredient but kind of not an optional ingredient which is pork fat. Pork fat really gives that shrimp mixture that savory flavor that you then spread onto toast. You're sprinkling it with sesame seeds and then you cut them into these adorable little triangles and fry them. Usually they're deep fried but we're at home so we're gonna shallow fry them in a pan. It really couldn't be easier. I have four slices here of bread. It is not snow white white bread. Sorry. That does not look white. It's Dave's Killer so it's a little like not snow white. This is not a health food. Just get the white bread. That's a brown bread. It says white bread done. It's all just gonna get fried. You're not gonna be able to tell the difference. This recipe makes 16 shrimp toasts so you could double this recipe if you want more. A lot of people cut the crusts off. I am pretty against that move. A, it's a waste of bread and B, I find that the outer crust keeps the mixture on the bread easier. If you want to cut off the crust I would just cut it off before you spread the paste on. It's like delightfully retro. It has the taste of effort. It is Friday afternoon as we film this and I'm looking forward to celebrating the coming of the weekend with our shrimp toast. The first step is to get your pork fat into the food processor. You may be wondering where do I get pork fat? I got it at my local grocery store. It is pork belly. Pork belly, if you are not aware, is basically where bacon comes from. Usually on the cap part you're gonna see like a pretty big layer of fat there. You can make one of our many pork belly dishes with that pork belly and just use this fat for the shrimp toast. I need one ounce or around 30 grams so I'm just gonna weigh it. This is a lot easier to do when the pork belly is partially frozen. There's a little bit of meat in your pork fat. That is not a big deal. Just leave it. 0.99 ounces. I'm just gonna put that in there. It's gonna get real pasty. It's best if the pork fat is really cold like just thawed. Ours sadly is not but this is fine too. Okay so what that's telling me is I have to cut it into smaller pieces. Oh god. There we go. Pulsing it is better. That's it. This is easy peel shrimp. It's already been de-veined. Probably the toughest part is making sure that you don't waste this tail meat. You just sort of squeeze it so that like air can get inside and then it just comes off a lot easier. So now I'm gonna add the shrimp. We call for a quarter cup of cilantro. This is probably more like a third of a cup. I'm just gonna roughly chop the scallion and then I call for a teaspoon of grated ginger. If you just mince it that's fine too. I just don't want any big chunks of ginger in there. Sugar. Half a teaspoon. Half a teaspoon of salt. Two teaspoons of cornstarch. This will help it bind together. And a quarter teaspoon of sesame oil. And finally I'm gonna add an egg white. Wow that was super poorly done. These things can be saved. The eggshell is like the way to scoop out egg yolk from egg white because a spoon won't do it the same way. Good enough. Process it until smooth. As with most things, blender or food processor, you do have to scrape down the sides of the bowl. That looks pretty good. The next step is just to spread this mixture onto the bread. If you wanted to make these ahead of time I would assemble the filling and then I would refrigerate the filling and then right before you are ready to fry them I would actually spread it on the bread, do the sesame seeds. So we're going to use about a quarter of this mixture for each slice of bread. There's enough here for it to be a somewhat thick layer because otherwise you're just biting into a fried piece of bread. So there you go. There's one. You don't want too much mounding. You want it to be somewhat even across the entire piece of bread. Then once you get to the edges do this scraping down motion against the actual crust. This is why I say don't cut off the crust because the crust keeps the filling on there. So now I'm going to spread the sesame seed pretty heavily. The sesame seeds are there for flavor and crunch and they also look pretty. Lightly press them in so that they don't end up in your oil. We are going to cut each one into quarters diagonally. The filling does like kind of stick to your knife. Make sure that it's not going to waste. If you are either thinking oh this looks like a lot of shrimp toast for one or two people or you're like how can I make the shrimp toast way in advance? You can freeze these, place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I would lightly cover them with a little bit of plastic and then freeze them solid six to eight hours. When it comes time to cook them just take them directly out of the freezer, put them into hot oil, maybe just add a minute or two to the cooking time for them to defrost a little bit and that's it. To sauce or not to sauce? If I'm eating shrimp toast I'm not looking for dipping sauce but if you are I would say duck sauce is a decent option. A sweet chili sauce is like sort of the most popular option. People also dip them in like spicy mayo. My sister has a recipe for yum yum sauce which we will link in the description box below. That would be a decent option or you could serve it with like a sweet and sour sauce. We also have a recipe for that which we will also put in the description box. My stance is dipping sauce. Nah like I don't really need one. You're in the minority. Let's move on. Okay. So I have a quarter inch of oil in this skillet behind me. I'm using a non-stick skillet but you could also use a cast iron skillet and in the recipe we say heat until shimmering. A better gauge is to dip a piece and when you see that sizzle the oil is ready. Place them filling side down and they're gonna fry on the first side for a couple minutes and then we're gonna flip them over and fry them for one minute more and then they're done. The goal is just to get that shrimp filling cooked through to get kind of a golden brown coating. Oh see try not to let the things touch because see this shrimp paste like kind of stuck. You don't want them to stick to each other. In the evolution of the Chinese restaurant in America we now have all these really great restaurants that are quote-unquote more authentic. Chinese regional cooking like there's Sichuan restaurants, there's Taiwanese restaurants but you know there are some of these Chinese American takeout classics that are falling by the wayside. Have you heard of fantail shrimp? Have you heard of butterfly shrimp? Have you heard of Americanized chicken chow mein? Like when people look up chicken chow mein today they're expecting noodles because chow mein means stir-fried noodle which is great but the Americanized version which was basically just like a stir-fry of chicken and vegetables which my dad has a recipe for with topped crispy noodles like that people can't find it because that's what we're hearing from our readers. My grandfather was making this shrimp toast at our family restaurant back in the 80s and 90s and you'd hate to see any food item disappear so we're keeping it alive today. They've been frying for a few minutes and now I'm going to flip them. We're gonna fry them for another minute or two on this side and then they'll be done. There's a line of filling down here that's not getting as much contact with the oil so I'm just like spooning the oil over those little seams or you could just do this where you just sort of hold them sideways. I'm just gonna put the toasts onto this paper towel. Show me a shrimp toast that tastes that good in a restaurant today. A lot of restaurants don't have them anymore. It's sad. They're so good. Look at the thickness of the filling. The bread is like when you bite into that perfectly done grilled cheese sandwich and it's got that like real like crispy edge. The bread is like just a little bit chewy. It has that like little chewiness and it's just like a little bit of a crunch. I don't know if you can tell but it's a little bit and then the filling is just has that snappiness of the shrimp. It's like if you've had taco or like a shrimp dumpling at dim sum it has that vibe and the cilantro gives it that flavor as well and then the sesame seeds are add on another layer of crunch and flavor and it is just so so good for a recipe that is that easy to make. Man it is delightful. Is this my favorite fried Chinese takeout item? That's a bold statement. Chicken wing? These and chicken wings are tied for me. So good. Everybody in the comments let us know what your favorite fried Chinese takeout item is. Yeah I'm curious. Hey shrimp toast. Do they live up to the old days? Wow it tastes pretty good. I put extra cilantro in it but I think it's really good. It's good with cilantro. Yeah cilantro. Bubba wants a shrimp toast. Hear that crunch? Hear that? Asian parent approved. Let's make shrimp toast popular again everyone. You saw how easy they were to make and if you enjoyed this video please like it and subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out more recipes at thewalksoflife.com. It's my third one and I'm not sad about it. Light on the set. Okay talk to me about peeling shrimp. I'm peeling the shrimp. You saying that it's easy is giving Martha Stewart. Well I'm not like oh like here's like five ducks that I'm going to Don't you dare talk bad about Martha.