Bone Fish Grill's Bang Bang Shrimp

Bone Fish Grill's hands-down best appetizer on the menu is their signature Bang Bang Shrimp. Actually its the best dish on their entire menu! I've ordered this numerous times wishing I had some jasmine rice to go with it and I'd be good to go! I recreated this at home and followed a copycat recipe that I ofcourse tweaked. Recipe with my tweaks below:

Ingredients
1/2 cup good quality mayonnaise (I like Hellmann's)
1/4 cup Thai Sweet Chili Sauce (Can be found in the international isle at your local market)
3 drops Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce (or to taste)
1 pound shelled and deveined shrimp ( I prefer using medium-large sized shrimp)
Dry cornstarch (I added some salt and black pepper to this)
oil for frying ( I used vegetable oil)
lettuce (Romanie, or Butter Letteuce works well)
chopped scallions


Preparation

Mix mayonnaise with Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. Add hot sauce to taste. I added a little water to thin the sauce out a bit. Dredge the shrimp in cornstarch. Deep fat fry the shrimp until lightly brown. Drain on paper towel, put in a bowl and coat with the sauce. Serve in a lettuce lined bowl, top with chopped scallions. Or to load up on some carbs, serve it along the side of white rice, I prefer Jasmine, which has a nice floral aroma and sauteed green beans. Serve right away as you lose the crunchy factor if you let this dish sit out for awhile.


Rice
1 cup of washed jasmine rice, 2 cups of water; cook in the rice cooker. You can make it over the stove too. Serves 2.


Garlic Green Beans
1 lb of fresh green beans, cut off ends; Blanch in hot water for 2-3 mins; remove and drop into a big bowl of ice water (this shocks the beans and stops it from cooking any further and keeps your beans nice and green). In another saute pan, drizzle 1 tbspn of olive oil and throw in 2 minced garlic cloves (more the better, if you love garlic like me!), toss in the green beans and serve!

Almond Flan

I simply love Flan. Its the perfect ending to any meal really! Its smooth and creamy with the bitter-sweet caramel sauce drizzled all over what could be better? How about bumping up the flavor factor and pairing it with ALMONDS. The nutty flavor goes oh so well with this, it was a match made in heaven. A real crowd pleaser, in my opinion. I followed this recipe below that I found at All Recipes.com and tweaked it! Recipe as follows with my tweaks:

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs (I used 5 eggs)
• 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract (I substituted Vanilla for Almond Extract)
• 1/4 cup of toasted, sliced almonds

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt sugar until liquefied and golden in color. Carefully pour hot syrup into the 9 inch round glass baking dish , turning the dish to evenly coat the bottom and sides.
3. Evenly sprinkle the toasted almonds over the syrup while hot. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Beat in condensed milk, evaporated milk and vanilla until smooth. Pour egg mixture into baking dish.
5. Place pie dish in a larger glass or ceramic baking dish and fill with about 1-2 inches of hot water.
6. Bake for 45 minutes in the water bath and check with a knife just to the side of the center. If knife comes out clean, it's ready.
7. To serve, carefully invert on serving plate with edges when completely cool (I suggest cooling the flan in the refrigerator for one hour prior to serving).