Location: My tiny kitchen

Have you ever had shrimp toasts at dim sum? Or do you remember when was the last time you see shrimp toast on the menu at a HK cafe? When I was small, shrimp toast was a common item at a HK cafe or sometimes, it’s the special item of the day served at dim sum. I don’t when it happened, but somehow shrimp toast just disappeared from any menu. I miss shrimp toasts. To ease my longing, I started making shrimp toasts at home. I failed the first time. The toasts were soggy and oily. I failed in my second attempt as well. The oil was too hot and the toasts all got burned. That didn’t stop me and I finally succeeded after a few more attempts. However, I still want to improve this recipe further. My next try would be to bake the toasts in the oven after they have been quickly dipped in the hot oil. But until then, you can try out this recipe and reunite your lost memory of those crunchy toasts.

This recipe gives you 12 mini shrimp toasts.
You will need 10 medium size tiger prawns.
Peel the shell off the prawns.
Using a pairing knife, cut a slit on the back of the prawns and remove the intestine.
Wash the prawns and towel dry.

You can use a food processor for this step but since I don’t have a food processor (I can’t believe this myself!), I do the chopping with my good old knife.

Dice the prawns until it is almost a paste. I like to leave some prawns in chunks because I like biting into chunks of prawns when I eat my toasts.

To marinate, use:
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of corn startch
A dash of sesame oil
1 tsb of Japanese cooking wine
1/4 tsp of hot paprika
1 tbsp of chives
1 tbsp of parsley
Freshly ground black pepper

Mix the marinate into the prawns until everything is incorporated. To mix, use a fork or chopsticks and turn in one circular direction. Mixing the prawns this way will bind them together.

You cannot use the mixture right away. Put the mixture into the fridge for at least 3 hours until it is set.

The next step is to prepare the toasts.
Turn the oven to 300 F.
Take 3 pieces of white or whole wheat bread, trim off the sides.
Cut the bread diagonally so that you get 4 pieces of mini triangular toasts.

Line a baking sheet and put the mini toasts on the sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes until the toasts are hard but their colour is still white.

Spread the shrimp paste on the toasts.

In a 3 quart pan, fill the pan up to 1/3 full with vegetable oil. Remember, when you are frying, you must not fill the pan more than half; otherwise, the oil will overflow during frying and trust me, that’s a very bad thing to have

The temperature is the key when frying. Using a candy thermometer, check to make sure the oil is heated up to 300 F. If you fry the toasts with oil that’s hotter than this, then they will burn. If you fry with oil that’s colder, then the toasts will be too greasy as they will soak up too much oil during frying.

When the oil reaches 300 F, drop in the toasts. Try not to be greedy and fry only a few toasts at a time so they have room to “swim” around in the oil.

Fry each toast for one minute or until golden brown.

As soon as the toasts get out of the oil, season them with salt.

There, the finished product that eases my craving. The bread is crunchy and the shrimp paste tasted, well, just like shrimps