Post #314768 by The Gnomon on Mon, Jun 25, 2007 10:52 AM

Sorry it took so long, but I finally tried it yesterday. It was great!

I made some personal preference modifications. Some I would do again. Some I would not.

I'm not fond of honey mustard, so I altered the recipe of the dipping sauce. I made three varieties of the dipping sauce. One was your exact recipe, which has a definite honey mustard character.

My first variation replaced one tbl spoon of cream of coconut with another tbl spoon of mustard and added two tbl spoons of powdered cayenne pepper plus a half tbl spoon of sea salt. I liked this one best.

My second variation replaced one tbl spoon of cream of coconut with another tbl spoon of guava nectar and added a quarter cup of chopped mint leaves. This one was pretty good, too, but still sweeter than I'd prefer.

Kind of a third variation was mixing the cayenne sauce and the mint sauce, which was also good.

In the second batter bowl (flour mixture) I added a half cup of fresh thyme. I'm often into thyme, but especially so these days. I buy it by the bunch. The fresh bunch thyme is the best, but it doesn't keep forever, so I'll find almost any excuse to use some.

As for the shrimp. I decided to use colassal shrimp (9–11 per pound), tail on. Next time I think I'll just use jumbo shrimp. The ones I used were like little lobsters and were a bit unwieldy.

After they were all coated, I skewered them, two bamboo skewers per shrimp. Each half of one colassal shrimp was about the size of a jumbo. After deveining, I skewered each half from the tail making a narrow V. Then I broke the skewers together just behind the tail so it would bend into an L shape. That allowed me to easily dip them down into the oil, holding them flat on the bottom until they were done. When done, I put them on a draining rack I had set up in the oven that was set on warm.

They all turned out great, but they were really too big. I had to eat them with a knife and fork, rather than as finger food.

One thing that's nice is it's pretty easy to do. Doesn't take long to memorize, so it can be done on the spur of the moment.

Thanks.