Chạo Tôm ✨

Shrimp paste is wrapped around sugarcane and fried for a Vietnamese classic that’s ready for summer!

Get Susan Vu’s recipe👇

Chạo Tôm
Level: Easy
Total: 2 hr (includes chilling time)
Active: 1 hr
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

Nước Mấm:
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (from about 3 large limes)
1/3 cup sugar, plus more to taste
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 to 2 red or green Thai bird chiles, thinly sliced
1/4 to 1/3 cup fish sauce, plus more to taste

Chạo Tôm:
4 garlic cloves
1 large shallot (about 2 ounces), coarsely chopped
1 1/2 pounds peeled and deveined jumbo (21/25) shrimp
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon chicken bouillon powder
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
Freshly ground black pepper
One 20-ounce can sugarcane in syrup, drained and rinsed well
Canola oil, for greasing and frying

Serving:
Rice vermicelli noodles (bun tuoi), cooked according to package directions and at room temperature
Green lettuce leaves
Sliced English or Persian cucumbers
Fresh herbs, such as cilantro, Thai basil, mint, and/or purple perilla

Directions

Special equipment: a deep-fry thermometer.

For the nước mấm: Combine the lime juice, sugar and 1/3 cup water in a medium bowl and whisk until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add the garlic, chilies and fish sauce and whisk to combine. Taste and adjust the sauce to your liking with additional sugar, water and/or fish sauce. You will have about 1 1/3 cups of dipping sauce. Cover and refrigerate while you prepare the chạo tôm.

For the chạo tôm: Pulse the garlic and shallot in a food processor until minced, about 10 pulses. Add the shrimp, mayonnaise, cornstarch, bouillon, fish sauce, sugar and 3/4 teaspoon black pepper. Pulse until finely chopped and almost pasty in texture, about 30 pulses. You will have about 3 1/3 cups of shrimp paste. Transfer to a medium bowl, cover, and chill the shrimp paste in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

While the shrimp paste chills, cut the sugarcane lengthwise into twenty 1/2-inch-thick sticks. (Refrigerate leftover sugarcane for up to 5 days; chew on them as a little sweet treat or use them as fun cocktail stirrers.)

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Grease the paper lightly with canola oil. Lightly grease your hands and grease a tablespoon with more oil. Scoop 20 even mounds of the chilled shrimp paste onto the baking sheet, about 2 heaping tablespoons per mound. Put 1 mound into the palm of one of your hands then place a sugarcane stick down the center. Use your hands to wrap the shrimp paste around the stick in a football-like shape (round in the center and slightly tapered on the sides), leaving about 1/2 inch of space on each end of the stick.

Fill a large Dutch oven with a little more than 1 inch of oil and heat until it registers 325 degrees F on a deep-fry thermometer. Line a second baking sheet or a large plate with a couple layers of paper towels and set aside.
Once the oil is hot, in batches of five, fry the chạo tôm until they are puffed, golden brown and cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes per batch, turning them occasionally. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet or plate to drain. The temperature of the oil will drop to around 300 degrees F after you add the chạo tôm; make sure to allow the oil temperature to come back to 325 degrees F before frying another batch.

For serving: Transfer the fried chạo tôm to a serving platter. Serve the rice vermicelli noodles, lettuce leaves, cucumbers and the nước mấm alongside. Slide the shrimp paste off the sugarcane and wrap it in lettuce with fillings and dip it in nước mấm.

Categories: Food

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