Pineapple shrimp balls — Taiwan

Pineapple shrimp balls set large, peeled shrimp, battered and deep-fried until crisp, against sweet canned pineapple chunks, the two bound together with a coat of mayonnaise. The combination reads as both sweet and savoury, closer to the profile of many modern Taiwanese dishes than to older seafood preparations. It is reported from Taiwanese banquet-style eateries, beer halls and stir-fry restaurants, rather than from home kitchens, and is generally treated as a fairly recent addition to the menu, tied to the period when Taiwan became a major pineapple producer and to later advances that made large shrimp more affordable and widely available. To prepare it, shrimp are peeled, deveined and coated in a light batter before being deep-fried until the coating turns golden and crisp. Canned pineapple chunks are drained well so they do not water down the sauce, and the fried shrimp are tossed with the pineapple in a bowl of mayonnaise just before serving, so the coating stays crisp rather than soaking through. What sets this dish apart from other fried-shrimp preparations is the pairing with both pineapple and mayonnaise in the same bowl, a combination credited partly to the influence of Japanese cooking on Taiwanese food culture, where mayonnaise appears in a number of everyday dishes. Restaurants vary the sweetness of the mayonnaise dressing and the ratio of shrimp to pineapple, without one balance being singled out.