Truffled shrimp tempura sliders

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For a while now I’ve wanted to make some kind of shrimp tempura sandwich- and I ended up doing two versions here, some sliders (built like a classic hamburger) and one as a regular-sized sandwich on brioche. These are not just your average shrimp tempura, the batter includes freshly grated truffle and the aioli sauce includes it too. If you don’t have a fresh truffle on hand, just use truffle oil for the aioli sauce instead.

First prep the aioli (basically it’s like a fresh mayonnaise). There are many recipes on line, mine has less garlic and more truffles!

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See the little flakes of fresh truffle? The mixture should stick to the blades.

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Pour the sauce into a container and keep it in the refrigerator.

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Now onto the shrimp tempura. Measure 3/4 cups tempura batter (you can find this at most supermarkets) and 1/4 cup potato starch. Mix in 3/4 cups ice cold water into the dry ingredients, keep whisking until you stop seeing lumps. Grate in the rest of your truffle at the end. You’ll get the best results if you let this sit in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.

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To prep the shrimp, you’ll need about 4 pieces of jumbo shrimp for 4 small sliders, deveined and cleaned. Take the tails off and slice through the top of the shrimp, don’t slice all the way, just enough so that you get a flat piece.

butterfly-shrimp

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In a saucepan heat 3 cups of vegetable oil and wait. You will know when the oil is ready if you dip in a chopstick and you start to see bubbles around it. This is the best way. When it’s ready coat the shrimp with the truffled tempura batter and dip into the fryer. (Please do not try what I’ve done in the photo below at home.)

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When it is done it should look like this:

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To make the sandwiches, prep some sliced tomatoes (4 slices) and sprouts (a small handful) and pull out the previously made aioli from the fridge.

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You’ll also need brioche bread that’s been cut into a perfect circle, then toasted lightly on both sides.

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Spread a generous portion of the truffled aioli onto the bread (both the top and bottom slices).

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Add the sliced tomato

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And then the sprouts. You can also replace this with avocado, arugula, or anything else if you don’t like sprouts.

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finishedsandwich

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For the regular sized sandwich, repeat all the same steps displayed previously with the sliders. You’ll need two pieces of shrimp and 1 whole sliced tomato (instead of it cut in half like I did for the smaller ones).

sandwich

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Serve with fresh mojitos.

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