Shrimp Toast is a classic dim sum dish from Hong Kong. My wife grew up eating these and she taught me how to make them. Typically, shrimp toast is deep-fried, but I find baking them is so much easier, especially if you're making a large batch. They still get really crispy and are not nearly as oily so you don't feel bad about eating a lot of them.
There are two things I really hate about traditional Chinese shrimp toast. The first is that it is really oily, and the second is that you can only cook one at a time (I have a large Dutch oven that I use for deep-frying, and I can never fit more than one toast). My trick is to bake them in the oven instead. You can easily fit 4 or more shrimp toast on a baking tray, and there's no deep-frying involved. You might think they won't come out crispy, but you're wrong. They come out super crispy!
How to make the filling
I made the filling completely in the food processor. The traditional method is to use a butcher's knife to chop and smear the shrimp into a paste, but that takes a really long time. The food processor is much quicker! I used shrimp, an egg white, soy sauce, oyster sauce, toasted sesame oil, scallions, ginger, and white pepper.
Coat in sesame seeds and oil
To coat in sesame seeds, all you do is press the shrimp side of the bread into a plate of sesame seeds and they will stick very easily. To oil the bread, I added 2 tablespoons of oil to a shallow dish and quickly smeared the bread into it. This gets an even coverage of oil, and I find it gives the bread the perfect amount of oiliness.
Baking
You want to bake the shrimp toast at about 350℉ for about 12 minutes. Start with the shrimp side facing up and cook for 8 minutes. Then, flip the toast and continue cooking for another 4 minutes until the bottom is golden brown.
My mistake: using too much bread
When I was testing this recipe, I tried using two pieces of bread instead of one and it turned out way too "bready." They looked very aesthetically pleasing, but they were not that tasty because you could barely taste the shrimp. My wife did not like them at all. In the final version, I opted to go with the traditional method which is only one slice of bread and covered in sesame seeds.
Baked Shrimp Toast
Ingredients
For serving
- mayonnaise
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350℉.
- To a food processor, add the shrimp, egg white, scallions, soy sauce, oyster sauce, toasted sesame oil, minced ginger, and white pepper. Blend until smooth.
- Pour the sesame seeds onto a plate.
- Spread ¼ of the shrimp paste onto each slice of bread. Press the shrimp side of the bread into the sesame seeds.
- For each slice of bread, add 2 tablespoons of oil to a shallow dish. Press the bread side into the oil and move it around to get it evenly coated. Transfer to a nonstick baking sheet with the bread facing down.
- Bake for 8 minutes, then flip and bake for another 4 minutes until the bread is golden brown.
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