Aka bánh mì chiên tôm. Literally, fried bread with shrimp. It’s hard for me to explain about shrimp toast. It’s always been one of my favourite foods, though I didn’t actually eat so much of it when I was younger; but when I started cooking for myself, it was one of the first recipes I tried to reproduce. And, boy, those do bring back memories…

You’ll need (makes a batch of 30-40 toasts. Yes, apologies, it’s for rather large quantities. They’ll keep for a bit in the fridge in a sealed box, though they’ll get a bit soggier, obviously)
-250g shrimp, shelled and deveined (defrosted frozen shrimps are perfect for this)
-1 egg white
-2 tablespoons flour
-0.5-1 teaspoon salt (depending on how salty your shrimps are. Frozen ones tend to have more salt content, at least where I hail from)
-dash of pepper
-0.5 teaspoon sugar
-2 cloves garlic, chopped
-3 spring onions, white parts only, chopped (or a small shallot)
-extra water and/or flour
-2 ficelles (a ficelle is a narrow baguette. Get a baguette if you can’t get one; or get some other sliced bread and cut it into small enough pieces)

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Mash the shrimps, the garlic and the spring onions into a paste, either by hand, mortar and pestle, or food processor. Then fold in everything else except the bread. It should resemble a spread; adjust water and flour quantities accordingly if it doesn’t.

Cut the ficelles into slices about 1-2cm thick (see picture for an idea of the size), and spread the paste on them. Now this is where it gets a little bit tricky: spread a thin coating of oil on top of the spread paste (we found out this weekend that the smallest of the measuring spoons, the 1/8 teaspoon, is pretty good for this, but it’s a painstaking job). Put them on an oven rack covered with aluminium foil, leave for about 15 minutes, or until the top turns golden. Enjoy!

PS: if you’re lazy and don’t mind the extra grease, the traditional method is frying them on both sides in a pan.

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