Shrimp Po'boys with homemade Remoulade Sauce

Like I said, this was an ambitious one.  And what happened is there was an outage of tomatoes in our area for some reason.  None at Walmart yesterday and no green tomatoes at Kroger's.  I thought about waiting until Thursday and hitting the farmer's market Wednesday night.  But just wanted to get this one done.

Shrimp Po'boys are about my favorite meal.  If they have them at a seafood place, that's what I'm getting.  So finding a way to make these at home and they were successful (Brandon even said they were restaurant quality) I might just have to add these to the rotation.

I got the Remoulade Sauce recipe from the June 2011 Southern Living Magazine.  I tried to find the recipe online, but couldn't so I'll put it here.  It is a good idea to make this first so that it can chill and the flavors can mesh.

Makes: 1 1/4 cups

1 cup Mayo
1/4 cup sliced green onions
2tbs Creole mustard
1tbs chopped fresh parsley (I used around 1tsp of the dried stuff)
1tbs minced fresh garlic
1tsp horseradish

Mix together well and chill until read to serve.

For the sandwiches I actually used frozen shrimp.  I had them from another meal I had planned and never used.  I thawed them out really fast when at 445pm, Brandon called to tell me there were no tomatoes for our sandwiches.

So I thawed them out in a bowl of cool water.  I had to do the water twice - it took around 15 minutes to thaw them out.  Then it was time to cook!

Here's what I used:

1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2tsp salt
1/4tsp pepper
1/4tsp chili powder
2 eggs
1/2 - 1cup milk
30 shrimp, peeled and devined (WAY too many for us - but we have leftovers!)
oil
french baguette
shredded lettuce, optional
pickles, optional
tomatoes, optional

In a large skillet, add oil to around a 1/4 inch and heat on med-high heat.

Step 1: Prepare Batter

Place the first four ingredients in a bowl together and mix well.  In a separate bowl, beat eggs and add milk.

Place shrimp in dry ingredients and coat generously.  Then place in egg mixture and coat.  Place back in the dry ingredients and then into preheated oil.

Step 2: Fry Shrimp

Monitor shrimp closely and flip often.  You're looking for a golden crust on these.  If you're oil was not hot enough (like mine) when you started, there will still be a crust there, just not golden like you might like it.  Shrimp cook really fast - mine were in a max of 3 minutes each.

Step 3: Assemble Sandwich

We got some great bread Brandon picked up at Kroger.  He was back and forth on what to get, but lucked out.

Slice bread down the middle, being careful not to slice all the way through.  Spread a generous amount of Remoulade sauce on each side.  Line one side with dill pickles (these were the ones I made!) and place lettuce in the middle.  Lastly, add your shrimp.  Each half, around 6 inches each, had around 7-8 shrimp.  It was just enough.

Spread on the Remoulade Sauce.

This was really good.  Not complicated at all, and cook time was pretty short.

With some sweet potato fries.

Here is the cost breakdown:

30 shrimp: $3.00 (Came from an 80 count page that I paid $8.00 for)
Batter Ingredient: $1.00
Sauce Ingredients: $1.50
Bread: $2.19
Lettuce $.50
Pickles: $.10

Total estimated cost: $8.29
Cost per person (unfortunately just Brandon and I ate this one, so on 2): $4.15/person 

But honestly, for this meal in a restaurant you're looking to pay double that if not more.  So I think we got a deal!