Appetizers Archives - The FrangloSaxon Cooks

Vietnamese Shrimp Toast

March 31, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

How does Chinese Shrimp Toast become Vietnamese Shrimp Toast? Well, you have Chinese immigrants to Vietnam who adapt it with the addition of some lemongrass and you’re good to go.

At least that’s one version of the story. My version is that shrimp toast tastes so good that anyone with access to shrimp will want to eat it.

I was inspired to develop a recipe for these after eating some frozen, overpriced & mediocre Trader Joe ones. I kept munching and wondering, looking at the ratio of white bread to shrimp, what the profit margin on the item was and whether or not I should fry the box to get my money’s worth.

After making them I can honestly say you’re getting poor not making your own. Plus, laminated boxes don’t fry well.

The beauty of this recipe is threefold. One – the shrimp topping doesn’t require a lot of steps. Just drop the raw ingredients into a food processor & whiz until it becomes a paste. Two – it tastes great. Three – it freezes great, making it superior to stale Doritos for late nite noshing.

As you start loading your food processor you’ll notice that one ingredient is soy sauce. For true Vietnameseish authenticity you will want to use Maggi soy sauce or Nuóc Tuöng. It’s the iconic Vietnamese soy sauce. Maggi was brought in by the French who imported it from Switzerland where it was first bottled by Julius Maggi, making its addition to colonial cooking an early form of fusion cuisine. However, the FrangloSaxon’s refrigerator door stash yielded only Kikkoman and it tasted fine, so I say go with what you got.

Another variation frequently employed by Vietnamese cooks is the use of thinly sliced baguettes as the carrier for the shrimp paste. These can be either fried or laid out on a cookie sheet and run under the broiler until brown. If you cook them in the oven get them about 4 inches under the broiler and broil at 425 until brown. Stay in the kitchen for this and keep a close watch so they don’t burn.

Finally, you’ll see that the little shrimpy toast points in the photo are accompanied by my carrot vinaigrette salad. This is a perfect side since besides tasting good the acidity counteracts the richness of the fried toast.

So there you have it. Shrimp Toast you can enjoy now or later.

Vietnamese Shrimp Toast

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Ingredients

For the shrimp paste:
½ lb. raw shrimp, peeled & deveined
¼ cup water chesnuts
2 tablespoons finely chopped lemongrass
¼ cup chopped cilantro (or flat leaf parsley)
½ cup sliced green onions
2 cloves garlic
1 small Thai chili*
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
1 tsp. Red Boat fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 egg white
¼ tsp. salt
sesame seeds
For the toast:
6 slices white sandwich bread, toasted on one side
For the garnish:
sliced green onion tops
sliced chilis

Instructions

Put shrimp, water chestnuts, cilantro, green onions, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce,egg white, sugar, chilis in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse several times and scrape down bowl. Continue to process until the mixture is a paste. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for an hour.
Very lightly toast the bread and cut off the crusts. Spread the paste onto the toasted side and cut the bread into triangles. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Fill a heavy skillet about 1 inch with oil. When oil is hot place the toast shrimp side down & fry till crispy, about 1 to 2 minutes. The oil should be 350 degrees or if you don't have a thermometer you can just take some of those crusts you cut off the bread & hold them in the oil. If the oil bubbles around the edges it's hot enough to fry.
Drain on a rack or plate lined with a paper towel.
Garnish with thinly sliced chilis or green onion tops.

Notes

* If you forgot to buy a chili don't despair! Substitute a quarter teaspoon of cayenne & all will be well.

Prima Nachos

January 26, 2018 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Named after Louis, as in Prima, these nachos are at the intersection where Tex-Mex meets Trapani, as in Sicily. The Prima family traveled from Trapani, Sicily to the Quarter where their musical son first cut his teeth on the club scene. You can cut yours on these easy Italian style nachos that are extremely fast to make.

Nachos Tex-Mex origin comes from just over the border in Piedras Negras (which technically makes it Mex-Mex but we’ll ignore that for the moment). They were whipped up by Ignacio (Nacho) Anaya for some hungry military wives from Fort Duncan back during World War II and his original creation consisted only of chips, cheese, and jalapenos. It was an instant hit and cooks have been tweaking it with added ingredients ever since.

I like to keep the add ons to some kind of reasonable number leaving the “super loaded” specials for sports bars with fully staffed kitchens. Shooting here for tasty but simple.

To start you’ll just shake out that bag a’ chips onto a cookie sheet or cast iron skillet. Next you’ll cook up the sausage, warm up the refried beans, add the tomato, onion, olives & fontina, broil and attack!

I use refried beans since bean beans tend to fall off the nacho. As you can see in the picture below I added a couple of tablespoons of a chicken broth reduction to make them a little bit easier to put on the chips. If you don’t have broth just thin with some water.

Fontina cheese is used because it’s Italian and melts better than anything except Velveeta (but tastes a lot better than V.) If you don’t have it Pepper Jack or Colby work well. After the sausage is cooked you can move it to the side of the pan and warm the refried beans. Then get all the toppings together and start building the nachos.

Always put the beans and meat on first and add the others as you like not forgetting to add the cheese last.

Ready to go under the broiler:

Ready to eat:

The best part is that if you’ve got the ingredients on hand and aren’t photographing it like I am here it should take about 15 minutes start to finish.

And to quote Louis, there is no “Basta Basta” to these guys so assemble and enjoy!

Prima Nachos

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Italian

Ingredients

Tortilla Chips
1 lb. hot Italian bulk sausage
1 cup refried beans, slightly thinned
½ cup sliced black olives
½ cup chopped tomatoes
¼ cup sliced green onion tops
Thinly sliced chilies to taste
½ cup grated Fontina cheese

Instructions

Spread chips out on a cookie sheet or cast iron skillet.
Cook sausage over medium heat until browned. Depending on how fatty the sausage is you may have to add a little olive oil.
Once the sausage is done, cut the heat and move it over to the side of the pan and add the refried beans to warm.
To assemble start with the refried beans, then add the sausage and finish with the olives, tomatoes, green onion tops and sliced chilies.
Top with the grated cheese and run under the broiler until the cheese is melted, then serve.

Notes

All the ingredient amounts are approximate. If you go exactly by the recipe you'll have enough for a large cookie sheet's worth of nachos but if you have all the fixings you can just play it by ear.

Accara

July 30, 2016 by Carine Clary Leave a Comment

Nothing is more southern than black eyed peas and fritters. But black eyed pea fritters? What’s that? Well, it’s ‘Accara’ and it’s largely unknown outside west Africa where it originated. African immigrants to Brazil call it “Acaraje” and stuff it with shrimp. For hundreds of years ladies in white dresses and turbans have sold them on the beach in the state of Bahia. These Bahianas originated the woman owned micro capitalist business model in Brazil that supported their families and provided some of the tastiest street food on earth.

Question is, why isn’t Accara better known? And the answer is – at the front end there’s some seriously tedious prep involved. To make Accara dried black eyed peas need to be soaked and rubbed between the hands to remove the skins (and the little black eyes) and it takes time. If you skip this step and just squash up the peas with the skins you will end up needing to have those same tough little skins power washed out of your dental work so don’t try it.

How to make this task bearable? You space it out. Way out. If I’m having these as appetizers for a party on Saturday night I put the peas in a large pot Friday late afternoon and cover them with hot water. They can be left covered or put in the fridge over night. Next day put the pot in the sink, fill both hands with peas and start rubbing hard. As the skins come off they will float to the top and you can pour them off. Refill the pot with water and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat.

I stagger it between other things that are less boring, like cleaning the toilet bowl or reading the EU regulations relating to the allowable shapes of bananas and zucchini (yes, they exit). Eventually all the peas will be skinless and eyeless and you can proceed to the easy part. And note. There will be stubborn outliers who hang on to their skins in an obvious attempt to drive you nuts and make you question why you thought this whole Accara project was doable. They cannot be defeated so just pick them out and toss. At this point your peas will look like this:

The rest is smooth sailing and involves putting the black eyed peas and other ingredients into the food processor or blender and blending to the consistency of bean dip or oatmeal. If it’s extremely stiff add a teaspoon of water. But be careful, if it’s too watery it will fall apart in the fryer.

And as I note in the recipe below it may be fried in your choice of vegetable oil, lard, coconut oil or dende oil which is also called red palm oil. Red Palm Oil is widely used in Africa and prized for its nutritional value. It has a gorgeous deep orange color and a distinct flavor that is authentically west African. Definitely worth trying at least once.

After frying the fritters should be placed on a rack to drain. However, since they are fried for such a short time they don’t absorb much oil so you can skip the paper towels unless you’re extremely fat phobic. If you are cooking them ahead of time just place them in a very slow oven (about 150 degrees) to warm up.

The other good news about this recipe that somewhat compensates for your excessive pea shucking efforts is accara’s freezeability. That is to say that they taste almost the same warmed up in the toaster oven as they do coming out of the pan. A couple of hot ones with some eggs & ham makes for a great breakfast. So get out the pot and starting soaking those peas. You’ll be in for a treat!

Accara

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: African

Ingredients

For the fritters:
2 cups black eyed peas
½ cup chopped onion
2 tsps salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. cayenne
oil for frying (can be lard, coconut, dende (red palm oil), or vegetable)
For the filling:
1 lb. small shrimp
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons garlic
parsley or cilantro to taste

Instructions

For the peas:
Soak dried peas in water overnight with enough water to cover. Drain & pour in hot water to cover. Let soak for 30 minutes then rub the peas in your hands until the skin falls away. These will float to the top and can be carefully poured off.
Drain the peas and put in a food processor with all other ingredients and process until relatively smooth. It should have the consistency of bean dip. If it's too thick add a little water.
Pour the oil into a straight sided pan to about the depth of 2 inches and heat to 360. If you don't have a thermometer drop a small spoonful of the mixture into the fat. If it's hot enough the outside will brown almost immediately.
Drop the mixture by spoonfuls into the hot oil careful not to crowd.
Fry about a minute on each side or until golden brown, then remove and drain.
For the filling:
Saute the garlic in oil or butter for a couple of minutes until soft then add the shrimp and cook for several more minutes.
Add chopped parsley or cilantro, give it a stir and stuff the fritters or add on the side.
Can be served with pickled vegetables..

Carrot Vinaigrette

March 27, 2016 by Carine Clary 2 Comments

Carrot Vinaigrette is my version of that cafeteria staple – carrot and raisin salad. Carrot and raisin salad is served nationwide, not just in the south and in all those places it’s served in pretty much the same style – grated carrot and black raisins bound with a little mayonnaise. Unfortunately the mayo tends to get runny at warp speed and unless you’re the sort of person who just likes raw carrots it’s a little bland and cloying.

I wanted something that was healthy, tasty, and would survive a few days in the fridge. So I started experimenting with different methods of preparation. Each version had less and less mayo until I finally jettisoned it altogether. That took cared of the watery milky residue at the bottom of the bowl. It remained only to punch up the flavor of the two main ingredients. This is accomplished by mixing up a fruit flavored vinaigrette seasoned with red pepper flakes and lots of orange zest. If you add enough zest it almost tastes like candy and you still have all the nice slices of orange to add to the side. The parsley contributes more flavor than you might imagine, and best of all, the vinaigrette keeps the carrots fresh and the raisins plump.

And yes, it lasts for several days in the fridge and yes, there’s a good chance that family members who don’t like salads or vegetables will like this so give it a try. You can enjoy it at supper or for a guilt free midnight fridge raid.

Carrot Salad

Author: Carine Clary

Cuisine: Southern

Ingredients

For the vinaigrette:
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup fruit flavored balsamic vinegar (or 3 tablespoons each of apple cider vinegar & honey)
⅛ tsp. red pepper flakes
zest from one orange
⅓ cup raisins
For the salad:
3 cups shredded carrot (about .80 lb.)
⅓ cup parsley, minced
Peeled & sectioned orange

Instructions

Make the vinaigrette and soak the raisins in it for at least an hour or overnight.
Grate the carrots on a box grater.
Finely chop the parsley and mix throughout.
Peel and section the orange & serve alongside the salad.

Notes

I've used peach, lemon & grapefruit balsamic vinegar with this - all good.
For a more savory version replace the parsley with chopped chives.
Keeps in the fridge for several days.

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