Fried Shrimp & Remoulade

The list of things I love to eat more than fried shrimp is not long, and it has been repeated here more than once: Belgian fries, lobster, great pizza. That's pretty much it. Usually I am lazy and buy frozen, already-breaded shrimp when I fry them at home. But every once in a great while - I don't think I have done this in years - I make the batter and fry the shrimp myself. There is no comparison.

I'll show you what I did. 


I decided to use Zatarain's. Part of me wanted to make a beer batter, with eggs, flour and beer... but part of me didn't feel like buying all those things and making such a big mess.

You mix ten tablespoons of the spices with 1/2 cup of water, dredge the shrimp in it, then toss the coated shrimp in the rest of the seasoning. I opted to use Trader Joe's frozen Argentinian Red Shrimp - I forgot to take a picture of the bag. You have seen me use them before. In my book you can't buy better frozen shrimp: nine bucks for a 1-pound bag of meaty shrimp that taste like lobster. If I had to list my top 3 most indispensable items from Trader Joe's, these would be one of them.

I pan-fried the shrimp in a half-inch of oil. It took about two minutes on each side.

I assembled a remoulade sauce: mayonnaise, creole mustard, chili powder, horseradish, Trappey's hot sauce, and McClure's garlic-dill relish. To tell you the truth, I did this several hours before I made the shrimp - you want to give the sauce plenty of time in the fridge to let the flavors meld together. You could probably even make this a day in advance.

These were awesome. The shrimp, as I mentioned, were big, juicy and meaty. The batter was crunchy, and the sauce was just fantastic. (Elizabeth loved it and asked me how I made it, but I don't really know. I just threw the ingredients together and tasted it, then added a little more relish and hot sauce.)

Using the Zatarain's mix made the process much easier than I remembered it. I will definitely do it again soon... probably make a po' boy.