Szechuan Pepper Calamari and Springroll-Wrapped Head-on Shrimp

We've been playing around with some Asian-style appetizers lately and two in particular were kinda fun to make.

Szechuan Pepper Calamari

We've been watching Season 5 of The F-Word and one recipe that stood out was a Szechuan Pepper Calamari - the detail on this that drew me in was the technique for scoring the calamari that created strange crispy strips instead of rings. The aromatic, almost floral aspect of the Szechuan peppers also brought some zip and interest to the dish. The cucumber salad accompanying it was pretty pedestrian but necessary to balance out the heat from the calamari.

Springroll-Wrapped Head-on Shrimp

We sort-of-borrowed stole this recipe from a dish we'd tried at The Corner. We took the idea of using unusually large head-on shrimp but replaced the shredded phyllo of the 'shrimp-in-a-blanket' with strips of spring roll wrapper, then deep-fried the shrimp until crispy and golden. We served the shrimp with a red-pepper & tomato chutney and dusted it with some smoked paprika.  The spring roll strips held up beautifully and kept a tight seal on the shrimp. All of the great flavors trapped in the body oozed out as you twisted the heads off and created a rich sauce inside of the crispy pastry.

Pantry Cannoli in a Pinch

The sudden need for a cannoli sprung up but we weren't exactly prepared to cook up the shells.

Elizabeth rolled up two tubes of heavy duty foil, then sprayed it with oil.



Next, she wrapped the foil rolls with a sheet of spring roll wrapper, kind of like a wonton wrapper but thinner and more pliable. To give it some sweetness, Elizabeth made a small batch of cinnamon sugar, which was sprinkled over a sheet of the wrapper...she then laid a second sheet over it, sealing in the spicy sugar between the layers of crispy wrapper.



The wrapperss went into a 375 degree oven until slightly golden brown, then we uncoiled the foil slowly to reveal just the shells.

Next, Elizabeth mixed some powdered sugar into fresh ricotta from Claudio's, which was piped into the shells. Finished with a dusting of powdered sugar and some dark chocolate 'snow', grated off a fine mesh microplane, and you've got a much lighter version of cannoli straight from the pantry.