Seductive Little Shrimp Cakes from Tacolicious
Got this book the other day, and decided to try the shrimp cakes as a little snack last night, when a group of friends were standing around the kitchen, drinking wine. Straight out of the pan, the shrimpcakes were an enormous hit. There was one left over, and I ate it cold this morning. Better warm - but still completely irresistible. Definitely a recipe I'll do again.
Shrimp Cakes with Corn-Tomato Salsa
(very slightly adapted from Tacolicious by Sara Deseran)
Shell a pound and a half of wild shrimp and pulse them very quickly in a food processor so that there are still a few chunks. Stir in an egg and 3 teaspoons of lime juice.
Chop a stalk of celery very fine.
Chop 3 scallions very finely.
Chop enough parsley to make a third of a cup.
Stir the vegetables into the minced shrimp mixture. Add 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon of adobo sauce (from a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce), 2 teaspoons of salt, a good grind of black pepper, 1 1/2 teaspoons of paprika and a half teaspoon of celery salt. Stir in 1 cup of panko. The mixture should be loose.
Pile some panko into a plate. Scoop up about a twelfth of the mixture and pat into a loose little cake about 2 inches in diameter and a half inch thick. Plop it into the panko and quickly coat each side. Set on a wax paper lined baking sheet; repeat until you have 12 to 14 little cakes. Cover with plastic wrap and set in the refrigerator for at least half an hour (and up to a day).
Just before serving, heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a large skillet and cook over medium heat about 3 minutes on each side, just until lightly browned.
Serve with this salsa.
Tomato-Corn Salsa
Scrape the kernels from 3 ears of corn (you should have a cup and a half) into a bowl.
Chop one medium tomato (again, a cup and a half), and add to the corn.
Add a cup of diced Armenian cucumber, a half cup of finely chopped red onion and a diced jalapeno chile. Stir in a couple teaspoons of salt and the juice of half a lime. Allow the flavors to marry for at least a half hour, then taste for seasoning.
This will seem like too much for the shrimp cakes; it is, in fact, the perfect amount.