Baby Got Fried

Been under the weather here, the wife and I; not full-blown flu, I don't think, but snorks and coughs and assorted plumbing issues. Getting better now.

We were off our feed enough so we skipped the New Year's Eve party we usually attend, stayed home and curled up in front of a fire, cradling my shivering dog when the fireworks boomed. Layla is gun-shy and thunder or firecrackers get her shaking and panting.

Not firework people in my house. 

As a result of not attending the party, the dish we traditionally bring, boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce, didn't get made. But down-home cooking tends to be comfort food, so I took one of the two-pound bags of shrimp and fried them.

I have posted my recipe before, but a quick recap is, get the oil hot enough in a deep pot–and good quality, high-heat oil makes a difference–then drop the breaded critters into it and cook until crispy. 

Some folks like to make a wet batter, nothing wrong with that. I prefer to single-dip them, first in a milk and egg wash, then into a paper bag with the dry ingredients: white flour, fine corn meal or corn flour, Tony Chachere's pepper seasoning, plus some fresh-ground black pepper. Corn flour doesn't get as dark as wheat flour when it fries, so you get a golden color more than a brown.

Drain on newspaper, serve with a cocktail sauce–catsup, mustard, lemon juice, horse radish, Tabasco–and eat until gone. 

The amounts of cholesterol and fat and salt in two pounds of fried shrimp pretty much uses up your RDA for like, three weeks, and you really don't want to know how many calories you down. Which is why we don't do this more than a few times in any given year. 

Because you can hear the sound of your arteries hardening when you stop chewing ...