Pad Thai Shrimp Burgers
Pad Thai is normally made with a tasty sauce consisting of sour tamarind, sweet sugar, salty fish sauce and spicy chilies so that is where I started but this sauce is a little too thick for what I wanted so I thinned it down a bit with the addition of some coconut milk.
I could have stopped there with the sauce but I could not resist adding some peanut butter, which is not commonly used in pad Thai, but since pad Thai is often topped with chopped peanuts I figured adding some more peanut flavour could only make things better. I filled the pad Thai burgers out with some of the vegetables in pad Thai including bean sprouts and shredded carrots along with plenty of fresh cilantro and I finished them off with some chopped peanuts and crispy fried shallots.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds shrimp, peeled, deveined and coarsely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 small shallot
- 2 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon lime zest
- 2 tablespoons cilantro
- 3/4 cup coconut milk
- 2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate (or the juice from 1 lime)
- 2 tablespoons palm sugar (or brown sugar)
- 1 tablespoons fish sauce (or soy sauce)
- 1 teaspoon chili sauce (or to taste)
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter
- 1 cup bean sprouts
- 1/4 cup carrot, julienned
- 2 green onions, sliced
- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
- 4 buns
- 1/4 cup peanuts, toasted and chopped
- 2 tablespoon crispy fried shallots (optional)
Directions
- Mince 1/3 of the shrimp in a food processor along with the garlic, shallot, fish sauce, lime zest and cilantro.
- Mix the minced shrimp into the chopped shrimp, form 4 patties and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Oil your grill, heat to medium-high and cook the shrimp until pink, about 3-5 minutes per side.
- Heat the coconut milk, tamarind, sugar, fish sauce and peanut butter over medium heat until the sugar and peanut butter melt and the sauce thickens a bit and set aside to cool.
- Mix the bean sprouts, carrot, green onion and cilantro and toss in the pad thai sauce.
- Place the shrimp patties in buns and top with the bean sprout mixture, chopped peanuts and crispy fried shallots.
