Something Blue

     More than a month ago, as part of banquet class, I had to come up with some dish ideas for a menu. The theme of the group I was in was funky and unique. I knew I wanted to come up with something colorful and unconventional for one of the dishes! Long story short, I ended up using Blueberry Vodka Cruiser as an ingredient! Yes, that blue fizzy entry-level alcoholic drink we all loved in high school. I’m really fond of its bright blue color and sweet blueberry taste!

     Here’s the dish which I called Party Drunk Shrimp. I deep fried the shrimp in a Blueberry Vodka Cruiser batter. Underneath, I put a popcorn cream sauce. To make it a bit more interactive, I put vodka cruiser in a 3ml pipette which you can shoot in your mouth before or after eating the shrimp. Surprisingly, the flavors work well! The batter had that distinct sweet taste without the sharpness of alcohol while the popcorn sauce was salty and buttery. The only real issue I had with this was in terms of deep frying and trying to prevent the batter from burning too much since it would affect the vibrant blue color.

     This morning, I decided to revisit Party Drunk Shrimp. Again, since I was having those deep frying issues, I changed things up. I made a new version of it, but used the same ingredients and flavor profiles.

     First, I thought of spherifying the vodka cruiser. I wanted to make Blueberry Vodka Cruiser caviar! As you can see, I used a medical syringe which I bought from the drug store. A caviar box would’ve been so much easier but the results should be pretty much the same regardless of what you use. I used 0.8% sodium alginate in the vodka cruiser and .6% calcium chloride in the setting bath. The vodka cruiser+sodium alginate mixture was too thick for my liking. It didn’t burst as much as I would’ve wanted when bitten. Will probably do .6% next time for it.

     Bored from the previous paragraph? Oh look, a video! 

 

     For the shrimp, I simply sautéed it in butter and the popcorn sauce was done exactly the same way. Also, I paired it with some cucumber and roasted bell pepper salad with a dill calamansi dressing. Would’ve wanted to use lime instead but I forgot to buy some in the grocery!

Party Drunk Shrimp verdict:
Version 2 > Version 1