Shrimp Recipe

So how did you spend Valentine's Day? I was playing tennis when other people were having dinner with their loved ones, but I'm not complaining. Heck, it's kinda hard to complain when you know that you've just saved a bunch.

My spanish teacher is really entertaining. The professor seem to have a somewhat elevated amount of interest in my progress. Probably it's cuz he doesn't get asians in his class often. I've been asked to do weird stuff like correct other people's work on the board and such but I'm not complaining... it's kinda cool and no one else seems to get to do that. Having said that, taking up spanish with no background is kinda tough. I have a quiz tomorrow, and it's like 100 or so words and phrases. It's really very difficult to learn those words in such short notice (I was informed of the quiz on Monday.) I think I'm doing okay for someone totally foreign to the language. My grasp of spanish grammar is better than some other students in my class who had at least a year of spanish in highschool. I guess they don't really learn anything in some highschools.

Oh yeah it's spring now I guess, cuz all the flowers have started to bloom. I'll try to remember to bring my camera out tomorrow and take some pictures and post it up on my photolog. But most likely I'll forget and take a week to get around to doing it.

Okay lemme share a really easy recipe I came up with which tastes really good (guys, girls love guys who can cook, so you might wanna take this down.) Take maybe two dozen peeled shrimp (around 1.5 inch long) and marinate with 4 pinches of pepper and 2 pinches of salt. Don't ask how much is a pinch. What do you think? A pinch is a pinch. Then crack an egg, poke the egg yoke with a chopstick and stir the shit out of it until it becomes foam. Just kidding. Just stir it abit. Make sure you DON'T go overboard and make it foam. Pour quite alot of breading (those regular kind with the shrimp on the packaging that you can get at the supermarket) onto a plate or into a bowl, whichever turns you on. Start a pot of oil boiling, and dip the shrimp into the egg, then make sure its all coated, then drop it into the oil. Let the shrimp cook till it's golden in color. Do each shrimp as you are going to fry it. Do not pre-bread the shrimps in advance, or the texture would be different. I do not recommend golden brown, because through personal experience, I know that if I wait till it gets golden brown, the last shrimps (or whatever I'm frying for that matter) to come out of the oil would be brown. Not golden brown, just plain brown, and it ruins the taste. Anyway, remember to drain the shrimp on a strainer. Let each batch sit for a minute or so (longer if you can but make sure not to stack the batches one on top of each other in the strainer) for the oil to exit the shrimp. I do not like the shrimp with alot of oil in them cuz it tastes oily and it's fattening and unhealthy. After the shrimp is drained, transfer to a plate. Do not line the plate with absorbant material like paper. It will turn the bottom shrimps soggy and oily.
Now for the sauce. Mix 6-7 teaspoons mayonaise, 1-2 teaspoons tomato ketchup, 1-1.5 teaspoons honey dijon (if you cannot get honey dijon, substitute with honey mustard, but the taste would be inferior, and the sauce would look less pretty,) and 1 teaspoon chilli sauce (thai kind.) Mix it up until all the there are no more chunks of mayonaise in the sauce. The sauce should be of a consistency that is like thousand island dressing, just slightly more viscous. Scoop the sauce onto the shrimps just before serving (after the shrimps have been put on a plate.) Do not put too much sauce on the shrimps, as the sauce has a strong taste and too much sauce will ruin both the taste and the texture (the crispy coating of the shrimp would be soggy.) Ideally, about 40% of the shrimp's surface area should be covered in sauce. Alternatively, serve shrimps on a plate, with the sauce in a small dipping dish on the side. Serve with garlic aspharagus (I know you know how to cook this and I know I cannot spell it) and mashed potatoes. Serves 2 hungry people. Serves 4 Xiu0s maybe.
Remeber to serve the shrimps warm, if not hot. Should you need to fry the shrimps in advance, keep the fried shrimp in a covectional oven set to warm. If your oven does not have a 'warm' option, set it to the lowest setting. Be warned that extended periods in the oven would result in the shrimps losing moisture and turning hard. 'Extended periods' become increasingly shorter as the temperature in the oven rises. So if your oven has a minimum temperature of 200, I would recommend you turn the off before the temperature reaches 80 degrees, then turn it back on if it falls to 30.
This dish does not have a name. Just come up with a fancy name when you serve it. Call it Nostradamus Jumps Over the Wall, Newton Kills the Cat or something. People who've tasted it just call it pretty damn good.

On hindsight, I probably should have posted this before Valentine's Day. Oh well, nobody's perfect.