Mix-n-Match: Fried Quinoa Bites with Ka-Pow Sauce

Cooking is getting dangerous.  This is two days in a row now I've used the fryer.  Two days in a row I produced outrageous results from my efforts.  It's dangerous because of how good it all tastes, but how bad it is for the waistline. Boo.

Today we're talking about a combination of two recipes: Baked Quinoa & Cheese meets Ka-Pow Shrimp.
I had leftovers from the baked quinoa dish so I decided to scoop out little balls of the stuff and drop them in the deep fryer for a couple minutes.

Here are the results...

Fried Quinoa Bites & Ka-POW Sauce:

To make this dish...

Follow the recipe for the Baked Quinoa and Cheese here and then go to the Ka-Pow Shrimp recipe to get the mix for the breading as well as the Sriracha hot dipping sauce.  YUM!

Ka-POW Shrimp!

My mouth is still buzzing from this hot-n-spicy dish.  Holy Moly.  It is SO good!

This recipe has been floating around on Pinterest for a while and I added it to my "Recipes to try" board several weeks ago.  Actually, it may be one of the very first recipes I added.  Anyhow, it is worth making. 

At first, I looked at the recipe and almost gave it the thumbs-down because it involved frying up the shrimp.  I'm not crazy about anything fried.  If it can be baked instead, I will go that route.  But for some reason, I decided to give the frying a whirl.  For the record, this is actually the first dish I ever used a fryer for.  Can you believe it?

SPICY "BANG BANG" SHRIMP

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

For the sauce:

1/2 cup mayonnaise

4-5 teaspoons chili garlic sauce, such as Sriracha sauce

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

For the egg mixture:

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

For the breading mixture:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

For frying:

8 to 12 cups vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS:

Combine all ingredients for the sauce in a small bowl; cover and set aside.

Combine beaten egg with milk in shallow bowl; set aside.

Combine flour, panko, salt, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and basil in another shallow bowl; set aside.

Bread the shrimp by first coating each with the breading mixture. Dip breaded shrimp into the egg and milk mixture, and then back into the breading. Arrange the coated shrimp on a plate and pop them into the fridge for at least 20 minutes. This step will help the breading to stick on the shrimp when they are frying.

Heat oil in deep fryer to 350 degrees F. Use amount of oil required by your fryer.

When oil is hot, fry shrimp 2 to 3 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on rack or paper towels.

When all shrimp has been fried, drop the shrimp into a large bowl. Spoon about 1/4 cup of sauce over shrimp and stir gently to coat.

PERSONAL NOTES:

As I mentioned above, this is the first time I ever used a fryer.  It turned out great - it was so easy to use!  But don't get me wrong; I do NOT plan to be frying up my food in the future (at least not consistently so).

The sauce was HOT.  If you don't like a lot of heat with your food, do yourself a favor and go lighter on the sriracha sauce.  You can always add more later.

Instead of using real mayonnaise, I chose to use Vegennaise. Real mayo just grosses me out. Always has.

And despite the steps involved here, it really is an easy recipe to follow.  The results are well worth the efforts.  I will be making these again (and possibly trying them out in the oven instead of fryer next time :)