Hawaiian Garlic Shrimp
Hawaiian Garlic Shrimp comes from the excellent onolicious blog, which we’ve visited in the past. Kathy points out this is actually “local” fusion food rather than a traditional Hawaiian dish, but she uses that name because it’s what people are looking for and so do we. Hawaiian Garlic Shrimp is served from competing food trucks at a famous surfing outpost on Oahu and the competition is really about how much garlic you can use with the eater coming out a winner. Makes 4 servings, or 1 maybe.
Ingredients:
1 lb peel and eat shrimp from the supermarket (the ones that have the veins removed but not shells)
¼ c chopped garlic cloves, about 1 head of peeled garlic, or maybe more!
4 T butter
2 T flour: all-purpose, rice or mochiko
1 t paprika
1/4 t cayenne
1 t Kosher salt
1 T olive oil
Method: sauté chopped garlic in butter until it is soft and fragrant but NOT crispy. Pat the shrimp dry and dredge in a mixture of flour, salt, paprika and cayenne. Heat olive oil in a second skillet (or use the same skillet, reserving the shrimp and butter to a bowl) and cook shrimp until crisp and pink, 2 minutes or so per side. Combine with garlic butter, toss to combine, and serve over rice.
Shrimp a-sizzlle!
*Mochiko flour is the stuff used for making Japanese mochi dumplings. It’s ground from glutinous “sticky” rice. Use if you have it but regular rice flour (which we used) or all-purpose flour should be find since it’s simply a medium for breading.
“DO YOU REALLY EXPECT ME TO EAT THE SHELLS?” A chain serving this dish in mainland shopping malls has very low Yelp ratings because they don’t remove the shells before serving. Breaded and seasoned, the shells are delicious! Try it and feel free to de-shell (or remove the tail) while eating.
