Shrimp Cake Recipe – How to Make Asian Shrimp Cakes
You have tried crab cakes, but have you tried shrimp cakes? If you are a seafood lover like me, you will fall in love with these savory and tenderly chewy shrimp cakes. With this shrimp cake recipe, in only three steps with minimal ingredients, you can make the most perfect appetizer.
I love making seafood at home, in all kinds of style, steaming, deep-frying, or barbeque. But I wonder how I can take it to the next level – transform the seafood into something different. I thought of the one thing that I loved when I was little – shrimp cakes, a delightful little snack I had every day after school. They are small pan-fried shrimp patties. With just a few bites of them, I felt like I can taste the flavor of the ocean.
What is Shrimp Cake Recipe in Asian Style
Shrimp cakes are one of the most common homemade appetizers in many coastal Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, and Thailand. But they all have shrimp cakes with their special characteristics. For example, Thai shrimp cakes combine the curry with shrimp patty, Vietnamese style shrimp cakes are skewered through sugar cane, and Chinese shrimp cakes focus on bringing out the original taste of the shrimp.
In this recipe, I recreated my own style of Asian shrimp cake, which incorporated the sugar and spice from Southeast Asia and the cooking method from China.
Ingredients for the Shrimp Cake Recipe
There are only a few things we need to make the flavorful shrimp cakes. Large shrimp, salt, white pepper, garlic pepper, cooking oil and flour, are all we need to make the magic happen. However, the quality of shrimp is the key to the delicacy. To make the best shrimp cakes, I recommend using fresh shrimp from a fish market or good quality frozen large shrimp. The bottom line is not to use the shrimps that have gone bad. They could ruin the texture of the shrimp cakes. Even worse, they might upset your stomach.
How to Tell If Shrimp is Fresh
Here are a few tips to tell if the shrimps are fresh when you are in the market.
- Look at the color of the shrimp. If the shrimp is fresh, it should look greenish, grey, or brown. If you saw the raw shrimp has abnormal colors like pink, it’s probably rancid.
- Check if the shrimp has an unpleasant smell. Normally fresh shrimp should have any strong smell. Fresh shrimp usually smell like seawater.
- Check if the shrimp feels firm and moist. If you were able to touch the shrimp, you could feel that fresh shrimp has a firm texture while rancid shrimp is mushy and dry.
How to Make Shrimp Cakes in 3 Steps
Shrimp cakes making is way easier than you could imagine. There are only three steps to make this delicious appetizer: grind the shrimp into the shrimp patty, season the patty, and pan sear the shrimp cakes. The thorough instructions of each step are as followed.
Step 1: Make the Shrimp Patty
After the shrimps are peeled and deveined, the first step is to make the shrimp into a shrimp patty. This is the most important step in making shrimp cakes. Cutting the shrimps in the right way can create a sticky and firm texture of the shrimp patty. Otherwise, the patty would be loose and cannot stick together when we sear in the pan.
The traditional and best way to do it is to beat the shrimp using the back of the knife in an up-down motion. Why the back of the knife? Because the blade is too sharp and it will cut through the connective tissue of the shrimps. As a result, the shrimp patty would not stay together.
The other way to do it is faster: put the shrimp in a food processor or meat grinder to grind it. This is very efficient but be aware of the texture of the shrimp and don’t overdo it. In the end, the shrimp meat should look like a paste with small chunks of shrimp. The right texture of the shrimp patty should be thick and sticky like it has some glue.
Step 2: Seasoning the Shrimp Patty
Next, let’s add some flavors to the shrimp patty. In this shrimp cake recipe, I incorporate some southeast Asia and Chinese ingredients. I used salt, sugar, white pepper powder, garlic pepper, cooking oil to season the shrimp patty. If you would like to have a stronger seafood flavor, you could use fish sauce as a substitute for salt. At last, mix with some flour to help the shrimp patty to shape better.
In this step, put the shrimp patty in a bowl and mix in all the seasoning.
Step 3: Pan Sear the Shrimp Cakes
After the shrimp patty is seasoned for about 15 minutes, it’s time for the last step: pan sear the shrimp cakes. Put table-spoonful of the shrimp patties in a frying pan and flatten them a little bit. Sear on a hot frying pan for 3 – 4 minutes each side until the shrimp cakes turn pink and golden brown.
What to Serve with Shrimp Cakes
I would recommend serving with a side salad to balance the savory taste of the shrimp cakes. It will be a healthy and light appetizer.
Another extra tip on serving shrimp cakes is to drizzle lime juice on them. It can add extra refreshments to the shrimp cakes and bring out the seafood flavor.
At last, to give a hint of spice to the shrimp cakes, you could complement the shrimp cakes with the classic sweet chili sauce.
Recipe
Shrimp Cake Recipe
Equipment
- Frying pan
Ingredients
- 1 pound Large shrimp pealed and deveined
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1/4 tsp Sugar
- 1 tsp White pepper powder
- 1/2 tsp Cooking oil for shrimp seasoning
- 1 tbsp Cooking oil for greasing the pan
- 1/2 tsp Flour
- 1/2 tsp Garlic pepper
Instructions
- Peel and devein the shrimp
- Grind the shrimp into shrimp patty
- Season the shrimp patty with salt, sugar, white pepper powder, garlic pepper, cooking oil
- Mix the seasoned shrimp patty with flour, sit for 15 minutes
- Heat up the pan over medium heat, and grease with cooking oil
- Put table-spoonful of the ground shrimp for each patty in the pan, pan sear 3-4 minutes of each side of the shrimp cakes until they turn pink and golden brown