szechuan pepper & salt shrimp

Remember I told you that Nate gave me a LOT of szechuan pepper? Well, he also e-mailed me a recipe for szechuan pepper & salt shrimp. I sort of deviated from it and came up with this.

I also want to apologize to the cashier at the market. I thought I had put only 10 shrimp into my plastic bag, and you charged me for 10...When I came home and cleaned the shrimp, I had 12. Oops...Sorry!

Szechuan Pepper & Salt Shrimp Serves 2

12 shrimp, deveined, rinsed, dried
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon Szechuan pepper
1/4 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice
2 teaspoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons olive oil

After cleaning the shrimp, dry well, you may have to dry them twice.
Grind the salt, pepper with a mortar and pestle or if you have a spice mill, whiz it.
In a ziploc bag, add the the dried shrimp, cornstarch and half of the salt, pepper and 5-spice.
Put the oil into a pan and heat.
With your hand, take some cornstarch and sprinkle it over the oil. If it bubbles, the oil is hot enough.
Add the shrimp and cook for a total of 1 or 2 minutes, turning the shrimp on all sides.
When the shrimp is cooked, take out from pan and sprinkle the rest of the salt mixture.
Enjoy!

NOTES: The cornstarch adds a light "crust" to the shrimp and hot out of the pan is the best way to eat this...make sure to have some rice and beer on the side!

Thanks again Nate for the pepper and recipe!