Seafood, baby!

Josh came home with six good lookin' sea scallops and a whole mess of head on shrimp. The options are endless really but I couldn't decide what to make.

I was craving a ceviche and was surprised at how hard it was to find a recipe that worked for me. Ultimately, I looked up the simple recipe I had used when we were at Rosemary Beach which turned out to be a super simple but killer recipe. I think it was from the Two Hot Tamales.

I took all the scallops and a handful of shrimp, deheaded and peeled em. Then I cut them all into bite-sized pieces and squeezed enough lemon juice over it to just cover it. I let it sit for 15 minutes, mixing it occasionally.

Meanwhile, I chopped some red onion, cut up some McMullan cherry tomatoes, chopped up cilantro. I bought some avocados a while ago and when they were ripe, put them into the fridge. They've been in there for a long time, but when I pull a shriveled one out, I find I still get a good amount of flesh. There isn't that much to carve out and toss.

When the ceviche was "cooked", I drained the lime juice, tossed all the pieces with s+p and added juice of another lime. Serve.

In a bowl for serving. I think the colors of the fish and tomato, avocado, red onion, cilantro stand out better in this picture. It was a pretty hearty bowl of ceviche.

For the rest of the shrimp, I found Ming Tsai's mom's recipe for salt and pepper shrimp. It starts off with soaking the shrimp in salted water for twenty minutes then drying them so they will crisp up properly.

Then you deep fry them for 20 seconds each at 375. Since I had so many shrimp (and had gone a little overboard when filling the wok with oil), I went in several batches, putting them on paper towels to drain in between batches.

While they are frying, you are supposed to saute sliced ginger, garlic, and scallions. I did my best to balance it all together. Once it looked like it had cooked enough, I added the shrimp to them. Then you add salt and a ground peppercorn mixture. I used black and Sichuan peppercorns. Saute and serve.

Served.

Overall, it was pretty good. I was hoping there would be more flavor on the shrimp themselves and I found them to not be that spicy. However, I got to suck/chomp on basically all the heads and the head does really build up.

The traditional salt and pepper shrimp I have has a light batter on it. I think I would consider seasoning them first then using a flour, Sichuan/black peppercorn, salt mixture and then deep frying.