Cucumber Kanikama- Phase 2

MMMMMM.... Now my one of my favorite types of food is Japanese sushi and I have a favorite Sushi spot on the northside if town. I like sushi but my biggest draw to this particular sushi place is their Cucumber Kanikama salad. I love it! When I go that is pretty much all I get...okay I lie I get a Spicy Chicken Roll too :)

So I decided that it couldn't be that hard to figure out their recipe for the dish, Cucumber and Crab were a given but what else. I figured that they probably used some soy sauce and maybe rice vinegar but what else. Well a little call to the restaurant and I found out what that other ingredient was, sesame seed oil! Well most of those components are not allowed but luckily they are easily substituted.

3 oz Crab Meat: 61 calories, Cucumber: 45 calories

Onto the components:
-1 Large Cucumber, sliced or diced
-3oz of Crab meat (if you are not using fresh crab find some that is not vacuum sealed in sugar)
-Prepared Kanikama Sauce (see kanikama sauce page: http://hcgfoodrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/08/kanikama-sauce.html)

Mix all together and wallah!
Up next: Pistou Sauce

Kanikama Shrimp- Phase 2

Last time I talked about my family's love for chinese/Japanese food and my lack of fondness for it. So to create a happy family, and a happy me, we needed to find some common ground. Since rice is out of the picture and we are limited with our choice of veggies, I quickly narrowed in on the broccoli. So now that I decided my vegetable I needed to figure out my meat. The Kanikama sauce, in it's original form, really came from a sushi place in their crab and cucumber salad. So I knew it worked well with shellfish. I tried it with the shrimp and it was love at first taste.
So as promised I present to you my Kanikama Shrimp recipe...

5oz Shrimp: 137 Cal, 3.5oz Broccoli: 33 Cal.

Preheat your oven to 400
On a baking sheet spread out semi-thawed medium (or large) shrimp
(now I say semi-thawed because we want it thawed out enough that the shrimp are separated from each other but frozen enough because it's going to make a great broth, that I like to bag & freeze for later.)
Use a few large spoonfuls of chicken broth and drizzle over the shrimp.
Then spoon some of the prepared Kanikama Sauce, not a lot just a little over all the shrimp.
Now onto the spices for this dish:
-Rosemary
-Basil
-Sage (a good coating of Sage. The shrimp should look completely covered in spices by this point)
-Oregano
-Leafy Marjoram ( most people don't have this spice but it's a great one, good for all meats)
-Salt
-Pepper
For the spices I really don't measure it out, I just get what looks like 2tbsps of each in the palm of my hand and give a good dusting over all the shrimp.
At this point you should be looking at this shrimp and saying to yourself, "that's way too much spice!"
But I promise it's not!!

This is how it should look Before cooking

After your shrimp is seasoned, throw those babies in the oven for about 20-25 minutes. (I use the already cooked, deveined, no shell shrimp because it's faster.)
Once the shrimp is done I like to pair it with broccoli on my plate, spoon some more Kanikama sauce over both the broccoli and shrimp and you're done.

After it is cooked

Quick, easy, delicious, and most importantly healthy.

Enjoy and stay tuned for my Herby Chicken Tenderlions cooked in Broth recipe. It's really good!

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