Deep Fried Vegan Shrimp with Bread, Pear Stew, Part 1 of 2

“Hi, cooking time. Going to make some Aulacese (Vietnamese) snacks, it’s called Deep Fried Vegan Shrimp with Bread. And we also make some pear stew. That’s for dessert.

For the pear stew, this is a big pear, so I think two is enough. And ground cinnamon. And some brown sugar, about 200 grams of sugar. About one tablespoon of cinnamon. And three cups of water. We also need raisins. We can put in about 100 grams of raisins together with the stew. So, we put water into the pot first. And then you chop the pear into small pieces, and cube it. And also put it together in the pot of water. Then you bring the whole thing to a boil and simmer it for 10, 15, or 20 minutes. Depends on how much in a hurry you are. Don’t forget to put a pinch of salt into it to make the taste deeper; and without much sugar.”

“While the pear is stewing, we’re preparing the batter for the vegan shrimp. We need about 650 grams of wheat flour. And put in there, a teaspoon of salt. We have some ground black pepper; one teaspoon. And we have one tablespoon, flat, of red paprika, for color and also for taste. The red ground paprika is optional. And then we mix them together well. We’re going to add some water to make it into a consistency, so we can dip the vegan shrimp in it and deep fry it. Now we add water into the mixture of flour and stir well. So for almost one liter of water, add 650 grams of flour. We mix it well. And that is done. Check it out. I think I need a little bit more salt. We let it stand for a while.

Now, check if the batter is OK. It should be fine. See, the consistency is very thick. All right. Now we need a French baguette. For the French baguette, you must ask the bakery whether they have put any egg wash over the bread because sometimes they do that to make the outer crust of the bread crispy, and that won’t be vegan if they put egg wash on it, will it? You have to buy the one without the egg wash. Otherwise you can buy the white ready-made. I’ve just made one from this. I baked one ─ just for you to look at. This is to be sure that there’s no egg wash on your bread. And then we’re going to cut it, slantways. We slant it, like this, diamond shape. Cut it not too thick, about one centimeter.”