GET YOUR "CALABASH STYLE" SEAFOOD!!

With the weather getting warmer, and summer just around the corner, we at the restaurant sit in great anticipation of the hundreds of tourists that will be dining with us each week. Most of them are often in search of the freshest local seafood they can get, which is what we, of course will give them.

Being the providers of a wide variety of amazingly delicious seafood treats, we realize that we are not the only restaurant on the Carolina coast that vacationers visit. Just a little over an hour south of Wilmington is the famous, "Las Vegas-like" Myrtle Beach, where coastal fried seafood is consumed at an almost sickening pace.

Just before you get to Myrtle Beach (if you are driving), you will come to a little town called Calabash, North Carolina. This tiny little town prides itself on being the "seafood capital of the world." This is due to the great number of seafood restaurants located in Calabash. Most, if not all of these restaurants boast to have the freshest and best fried seafood of all. An advertising statement that brings the tourists back year after year.

This in turn, has led to the coining of the term "Calabash-Style" seafood. Several restaurants actually give a definition of calabash style (claiming to have invented it) as being "seafood prepared fresh, lightly battered, and fried to order."

Researching just what this "style" of cooking might be, I can tell you that the common ingredient that Calabash area restaurants use is self-rising flour. This results in a very light breading when fried. Other than that, my friends, it's nothing more than fried seafood. And it can be done very well, and it can be done badly. The most common mistake restaurant cooks and home cooks alike make is over-cooking fried seafood. Take fried shrimp for example. With the oil at 375 degrees, it only takes 2 to 3 minutes to fry shrimp to golden brown and delicious.

Other things to keep in mind:

Shake off excess flour before frying.
Don't overcrowd the oil (frying too much at once) or you'll loose temperature, and your batter will fall off. Fry in batches.
Drain fried food on paper towels as soon as it comes out of the oil, and season immediately.
So with the season fast approaching, and the insatiable hunger for saturated fat looming like a giant storm cloud of vegetable oil, here's a little recipe for what you may consider "Calabash Style Fried Shrimp."

2 pounds 21/25 count shrimp, peeled and de-vained
4 each whole eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 cup self rising flour
1 teaspoon iodized salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
3 tablespoons Italian parsley, chopped

vegetable oil for frying

Combine in a bowl the eggs, milk Kosher salt, and black pepper, and set aside. In another bowl, combine flour, salt and pepper, sugar, chili powder and parsley.

Heat vegetable oil to 375 degrees. Place shrimp in egg mixture, and then coat in flour. Shake off excess flour, and fry shrimp in small batches for 2 to 3 minutes, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels, and season immediately to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with your favorite cocktail or tarter sauce.