You can make these nice, puffy beer-battered shrimp with very little effort. You just need to let the batter sit for 30-45 minutes before you start dipping and frying the shrimp. We found that the best frying temperature for the shrimp was about 350˚ F. They still take only minutes to brown.
If you are using a stand mixer, you might find that it can’t beat a single egg white. We usually put in two so the beaters will catch the whites, and then only use about half of the beaten whites.
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined.
½ cup flour
Dash of salt
1 beaten egg
1 Tb melted butter
½ cup beer
1 egg white, beaten
About 3-4 cups canola oil
Lemon wedges
Seafood sauce of your choice
Folding egg whites into batter
Frying the shrimp
Mix the flour and salt and stir in the butter and egg.
Add the beer gradually, stirring only until smooth.
Let the batter stand in a warm place for 30-45 minutes
Preheat the oil to 350˚ F.
Beat the egg white to stiff peaks.
Fold the egg white into the batter.
Dip the shrimp into the batter and drop directly into the hot oil. Cook only 5-6 at a time to keep the oil from cooling.
Serve with French fries, lemon wedges and cocktail sauce.
French fries
Since you have the hot oil, why not make some French fries, too? Cut about 1 or potatoes per person into strips and soak in cold water for an hour, and then drain them.
Turn the oil temperature up to 375˚ F. Dry the fries, and cook them in a couple of batches. Serve at once.
We’ve been thinking about visiting Hoodoo Brown since before the pandemic, and now that we and they are more open, we thought we’d give it a whirl. It’s right at the intersection of Route 7 and Route 35, with a fair amount of parking behind as well as some in front.
We first attempted to have dinner there Saturday about three weeks ago, leaving Wilton about 5:15pm and getting there before 5:45. They politely told me there was a 1-1/2 hour wait, and maybe we should come back on a week night. So we did.
We got there last night (Thursday) about 5:45pm, and were able to park right in front. There was no crowd at all. The really friendly hostess seated us right away, mentioning twice where the bathroom was. Either we looked like we needed it or she thought their food did.
Our waitress was really helpful with their beer list, which was way longer than was printed in the menu. We ordered an IPA she recommended., and it was great While the menu itself is not large, it can be daunting, since so much of it seems to be quite large portions of meats. It features meats by the half pound including: brisket, pulled pork, pork belly, pastrami, pork ribs, smoked chicken, smoked sausage and beef rib. Their special that night was smoked prime rib 1 lb for $35 and 2 lbs for $44. It seemed a bit much for us.
There were also several appetizers, including BBQ Nachos, Texas Poutine, Fried Green Tomatoes, Chicken wings (several sauces are offered) and Burnt End Deviled Eggs. We got the chicken wings with barbecue sauce and the deviled eggs.
Wings with barbecue sauce
Burnt ends on Deviled Eggs
Of these, the chicken wings were tender and flavorful, but the deviled eggs just plain weird. The little bits of burnt ends were variable in tenderness and the deviled eggs themselves pretty flavorless. They would be better if they added some mustard or horseradish to the egg filling so they rose to the flavor profile of the burnt ends.
Oddly enough, the waitress said there was no pork belly (not ready yet) and no bacon or sausage. This was disappointing since pork belly is featured in several of the menu items.
We ended up ordering their copious sandwiches, made up of brisket, pulled pork, pork belly and chicken in various combinations. We settled on the Hogzilla, made up of shaved pork ribs, pulled pork, pork belly, fried green tomatoes and supposedly Hoodoo Voodoo sauce. It also comes with copious French fries as well. The waitress said they’d add extra puled pork to make up for the missing pork belly.
The French fries were quite good, but the pulled pork was dry with no barbecue sauce within. We did each get a small 1 oz cup of sauce with our place setting, and we probably could have asked for more, but it would have been better if it had been mixed into the pork.
Hogzilla
If you look at the two pictures of the sandwich, you will see an odd orange square of something or other. The waitress identified it as pork belly crackling, but we think not, as it was hard enough to break a tooth on. And you could play a tune on your metal tray by banging it with that square, which I finally decided was more like petrified bacon. Luckily, we didn’t bite into one! We wished we’d stuck to ordering the ribs.
Hogzilla interior
Their dessert menu looked sort of interesting, especially the Carmelita Sundae, but we didn’t partake. Our bill with tax, but before tip, including 3 beers was $72.
Hoodoo Brown is at 967 Ridgefield Rd and is open T-Th 4:00pm-9pm, F-Sa 11:30am-9:30pm Su 11:30am-8pm, and takes phone orders up to half an hour before their closing times.
We started raised bed gardening in 2014 when we realized that they would keep the soil from washing away. We bought cedar beds made by Greene’s Fence both from Home Depot and Amazon, and over several years worked up to about 23 4×4 beds. We had some topsoil delivered and added our compost and some commercial compost as we built them up.
Greene’ Fence raised beds, 1 year old and 2 years old.
But by the third year, the cedar beds started to deteriorate and we began replacing the beds about every three years. Needless to say, this can get expensive. In the above picture, you can see the one year old frame in the foreground and a two-year old frame behind it, already starting to fall apart.
Last year we decided we’d had enough, and we ordered 4 vinyl 4×4 beds to replace four of our rotting beds. The original ones were made by New England Arbors. These were very sturdy and still look great today. However, they don’t seem to be available any more.
New England Arbors– dog not included
This January we ordered some from Amazon made by Kdgarden which were pretty similar, but the Chinese company (Qingdao Kdgarden) that makes them seems to have dropped them from their product line. Or maybe they fell into the Suez?
Barton and Kdgarden match each other
We looked at ones from Home Depot made by Vigoro, but when we tried to assemble them, we discovered that they snapped together without any strong vinyl vertical tracks in the support poles and they came apart very easily. They also had some tiny little corner locks that were very hard to insert and didn’t stay together either, so we returned them to Home Depot.
The final order through Amazon was for frames made by Barton. These were identical to those from Kdgarden and the panels and posts were interchangeable. These are what we have switched to. They are very strong and fairly nice looking. However, they don’t exactly match the panels and posts from New England Arbors so we will have to use our table saw to cut a groove in the other side of one of the new Barton boards to lock into the posts from NE Arbor.
Joints in Barton (left) and NE Arbors (right)
All of the Barton frames come with glue to secure them. We haven’t bothered yet but may use it on the ones of separate ancestries. These vinyl frames cost about twice what we paid for the original Greene’s Fence cedar frames (they are about $80 each) but considering the cost of replacing the cedar frames several times this is a far better deal. Thankfully, they are still available.
Food Science Institute 