Dynamite Rock Shrimp

It seems like almost every restaurant has their own version of a spicy, sweet Asian-inspired shrimp appetizer. I don’t think anyone will deny that it is delicious! A good customer and friend of ours shared the recipe with me for the sauce from the restaurant that (in my mind) put these shrimp on the map! I was so excited to try it. It was pretty hard to decide on a name for this recipe, but everyone at the house agreed that they were dynamite… so we will go with that.

If you have young children in your house, you know that sometimes you have extra kitchen “helpers” milling around while you are trying to get dinner together. I always try to find ways to get them involved in the process. This dinner was pretty simple, but it involved frying. I don’t like them in the kitchen with oil on the stove. It seemed like the perfect time to give them a project… making butter!! I have them do this from time to time when we have some heavy cream leftover from a recipe. We used their homemade butter on the rice we had with this meal. See the Homemade Butter post to learn how!

I started by making the sauce. I combined the mayonnaise and the chili sauce in a bowl and added Sriracha to taste. The recipe called for a few drops of Srircaha. I added almost a teaspoon. This is really going to depend on your taste. After it’s combined, set it aside while you prepare the shrimp.

Dynamite Shrimp Sauce:

1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1/4 cup Sweet Chili Sauce
Srircaha to taste

For the shrimp, I wanted to use rock shrimp because they are bite-sized. You could use any shrimp you like! Any time you are going to fry something and THEN coat it in sauce, you have to have a really crispy breading or you will end up with a soggy mess. One trick that can be used to get really crispy breading is to add a little cornstarch to it.

I used one pound of rock shrimp. I rinsed them and bathed them in an egg/milk mixture. This will help the coating stick to them.

I just breaded them with flour and cornstarch seasoned with pepper, paprika, and salt. (I think I ended up with a ratio of 3:1 flour to cornstarch.)

Toss the shrimp to really coat them well in the flour mixture.

Heat some oil on the stove. You’re going to want it very hot. I have a gas stove and had it turned almost all the way up. The shrimp cook very fast so you have to make sure they are going to get very crispy without overcooking them. When they are golden brown, firm, and crispy they can be removed from the oil and drained on a paper plate. While they are still very hot, GENTLY toss them with the sauce.