After having a couple days of yummy Italian food, I felt it was time to switch gears and try something different. Thinking about what I had in the pantry when I remembered that I had a bunch of shrimp left over from a couple weeks ago (gotta love the versatility of frozen shrimp!!). Now…what to cook that wasn't the same ol same ol. What I came up with was a super coolio recipe from Epicurious for Shrimp cakes with Chili Lime Cream sauce. I thought it would be a good idea to compliment the cakes with a nice salad…and to go with that, I thought that I'd make a nice Honey Mustard salad dressing from scratch! (how ambitious am I?)

Starting off we got the ingredients ready for the salad dressing:

I was pretty excited to use honay (Honey) as I have a sweet tooth the size of Savannah.  Kicking it off, I put the honay in a pot with the vinegar to get it dissolved.  As I assembled the other ingredients I noticed that for some reason I was sticking to the floor….DAMN IT!!  I was betrayed by that sweet sweet honay bear!! lol  I took off my flip flops and washed down the floor.  I then moved on to assembling the dressing…slowly whisking in the oil.  What I was left with was a super yummy salad dressing which would work well for topping the shrimp cakes (I hoped!). 

Next it was on to the assembly of the shrimp cakes.  I called this recipe 'Tiger Cakes' because these are frozen tiger shrimp.  The recipe called for throwing these in the food processor, but after consulting with my pal Al at work we thought it'd be best to roughly chop the shrimp instead of blending them…this would give it a bit more texture and body.

I threw all the ingredients in a bowl and started stirring it up.  It came together fairly quick as I threw in some PANKO BREADCRUMBS!! mmmm…panko!! This brought the mix to a nice solid mixture suitable for forming and eventual dredging into more panko for a crunchy exterior.

Ready for deployment!  In a large cast iron skillet I heated up some oil and began crisping up each side.  When all was said and done, I think the shrimp cakes came out pretty damn good.  I dried the cakes on a drying rack which kept them really crisp and yummy…the salad (admittedly store bought) was very good and I really LOVED the honey mustard dressing on top of the shrimp cakes.

Lessons learned:  Judging when the shrimp cakes were done was a bit difficult as I think I made them a little too thick.  I probably could've used a bit more oil when I fried the second batch.  I get a bit nervous when I see smoke while frying and need to 'get over it'.  I also used cilantro instead of chopped parsley in the dressing and it worked out really well.  I would also be more cautious of my friend the honay bear…he is one sneaky character and is prone to making life sticky for all who come into contact with him!!

 Finished!!