Here's a recipe I really wanted to try, and since we ate lunch late yesterday, I thought just a little something filling would be good! Even though you might think it looks good on the pictures, if you saw how beautiful the ones from the book I took this recipe from are on their pictures: the white sweet potatoes look supremely white (I didn't want to soak mine because I didn't want water in the oil, but they became brown in a minute, way before I was done...), the cakes are perfectly round, the shrimps stayed in place, perfectly distanced from eachother... Mine were still delicious, so let's say they look rustic!
I think I know some tricks I'll try for next time. I'll share them at the end of this post. The ratio of batter vs. sweet potatoes and shrimps didn't really make sense when looking at the pictures in the book (sometimes you need to copy food you never had before the first time you cook it to get the full experience: the cut of the vegetables, the texture or shape of a batter or a cake) so I took the liberty of changing it. If you try my recipe, it should look like my pictures, or maybe better if you try my ideas of what I should change next time to make it better. I'll repost it if next time it's better, but next time might be in a long time because fried foods are delicious and highly upsetting my stomach. So here's my own version of Banh Tom Ho Tay, inspired by the one in the book Vietnamese Street Food by Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl:
(serves 2-4 as a heavy snack or side)
Batter:
-1/2cup all-purpose flour, sifted
-1tbsp rice flour
-1/2tsp baking powder
-1/3tsp turmeric powder
-1/3tsp salt
-a pinch of sugar
-1 egg yolk
-1tsp rice vinegar
12 raw shrimps, without head, legs cut and deveined (but keep the shells on) and cut in two lengthwise, marinated with:
-2tsp fish sauce
-1/4tsp black pepper
-about 150g white-fleshed, purple-skinned sweet potatoes, cut into thin 2" long or shorter matchsticks (setsuma imo, goguma...)
-oil for deep-frying
-pickles as a side (optional)
Make the batter, cover, and let it rest for about 15 minutes. Prepare and marinate the shrimps for about 15 minutes. Warm up the oil in a wok or wide, deep pan.
After 15 minutes and when the oil is ready, close to the pan, bring everything you need: the shrimps, the batter with a tablespoon, the sweet potatoes, a metal ladle and a regular metal spoon.
Dip the metal ladle in oil to warm it up and keep some oil in the laddle. Briefly mix the batter and pour 2tbsp of it in the ladle, then tuck in some sweet potatoes, top with 3 shrimp pieces and pour 1tbsp of batter on top to seal the shrimps. Hold the ladle straight in the oil, moving it a little to allow oil to go under the sides. After 3 minutes, the book says it should float, but believe me, it totally stays stuck to the ladle, so with the metal spoon, carefully unstick the pancake from the ladle and push into the oil, where it should stay until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Repeat until everything is finished.
Note: You might have to scrape your ladle at some point because of batter remains, but you do not need to wash it in between, and it you do, properly wipe your ladle with paper towels to minimize the splashes as water enters in contact with the oil... If you want to have a heart attack, I sprinkled some coarse salt on mine, it was good! I had French grey sea salt, whooo, everything from France just sounds fancy!
SO FOR NEXT TIME:
-Maybe if I hold the ladle in the oil for a good minute, and make sure the oil is at least at 350F (I was monitoring mine and it was at 340F most of the cooking time, oops), the high temperature will cook the surface of the batter instantly, kind of like the trick to takoyaki (Japanese delicious octopus dumplings junk food, look it up!: http://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/takoyaki-recipe/) and the batter will float like the recipe from Vietnamese Street Food says...
-Start preparing a little ahead by soaking the sweet potatoes in water with a little vinegar for maybe 30-60 minutes, then lying them on paper towels and use as many paper towels as necessary to really dry them so the batter sticks to them and the oil doesn't splash like crazy with the scary noises. That should make the potatoes white, and relieve them of most of their starch, making them crispy!
Good luck, but even my ugly ones still held together and tasted delicious, worth a try!
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