Go to the Recipe: Shrimp Toast
i made this yesterday and it turned out great. my only problem was that my medium heat was too hot and the sesame seeds got too toasty. Next time I will turn the heat down and put them in a 200 degree oven to keep warm and finish cooking the shrimp. Great recipe.
I cannot get water chestnuts. With what to can I replace them? Also I would prefer to use butter instead of lard. Would it work?
If you can't find water chestnuts, I've made these with jicama, and they're great! And if you can't find jicama, then I'd recommend using some celery for a similar textural element.
Butter would work, yes, but you may find that the butter browns the sesame seeds too quickly, long before the shrimp is cooked through. If you want to use butter, I'd recommend starting the toast in neutral oil, then adding 1 to 2 tablespoons (15-30) of butter and flipping to the bread side for the final toasting step.
Hope this helps!
"Do not freeze uncooked toasts" I assume that's because freezing will harm the texture of the shrimp mousse. Does that imply that freezing cooked toasts won't? I'd love to be able to batch these and freeze. Also looking to use the mousse recipe as a cheung fun filling - how would steaming from frozen work for it?
Freezing is tricky here because it can disrupt the ability for the mousse to stick to the toast. That's the primary worry here.
I would say, that cooked toasts can be frozen to some success. In this case, I would leave the bread side un-toasted. You can reheat the toast in a moderately hot oven (say, 325-350F), then finish the toast in a pan with fat (oil, butter, or even lard).
This mousse would do pretty well in a cheung fun filling. There are two ways I would go about this:
1. You could steam the mousse in a small, greased sheet tray. Then you can cut/portion the mousse as needed to fill your cheung fun and roll. The advantage here is that you can cook the shrimp precisely and make uniform cuts out of the cooked mousse.
2. You can pipe or spread shrimp mousse in a thin layer over the steamed rice batter, then keep steaming and roll. This is akin to making beef cheung fun.
Both fully cooked products could be frozen, then steamed to reheat.
If you're asking if you can fill cheung fun with raw shrimp mousse, shape them, then freeze: Yes, but the steaming time from frozen will be a bit longer than the above methods, to ensure that the shrimp is cooked through. This is a trickier method, since it's more difficult to gauge doneness without a needle probe/thermometer.
If I were going to swap the shrimp for lobster is there anything I should be mindful of?
