Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Can't Get These at the Red Lobster!

Ya know how you see the Red Lobster commercials on tv and all the food looks so good and fresh and bouncing all over the plate. And now they claim to have a GRILL MASTER cooking these wonderful dishes with grill marks all over them. Well I have to admit that I haven't been to Red Lobster in years. Reason #1 - Mark got sick there and ended up in the ER; Reason #2 - we live in a coastal town in Florida....there is absolutely no reason we should be supporting a national chain seafood restaurant when we have locally owned restaurants with fresh seafood; #3 - it's EXPENSIVE; #4 - When you get the food, it's a mess. Bland looking, small, not appetizing at all. Granted if you lived in the middle of Ohio or somewhere like that maybe Red Lobster is the best you can get! But not here and not at my house. Seriously these are the best fried shrimp you could possibly eat. I got the breading sequence from Elise at http://www.elise.com/recipes/.

My, oh my....this is some fine eating my friends!

Pound of large shrimp (think 16 - 20 count) peeled and butterflied. I even took off the tails - I don't want to have anything in my way when I eat!

1 cup of flour with salt and a bit of cayenne pepper
2 large eggs beaten
1 cup of panko crumbs (is that what they're called?? doesn't sound right.)
1 big bottle of canola oil

Put oil in skillet to heat. I used my 30 year old electric skillet, poured the oil halfway up the side and heated to 350 degrees.

Put the flour mixture in a ziploc baggie. I put all the shrimp in at once and shaked 'em up a bit coating them thoroughly with flour. I then dipped each of them into the egg making a bit of a glue on the shrimp -- then on to the panko coating each one completely. I did about half the shrimp at a time letting the coating rest a bit before plunking them into the oil. It was a quick fry - about 5 minutes on one side and maybe 2 or 3 on the other side.

A bit of fresh lemon juice and some awesome cocktail sauce -- oh my!! These are so crispy and good. Even good the next day for lunch. I reheated in a 400 oven on a cookie sheet with some cooking spray until I heard them start to sizzle a bit.

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