Beer Battered Shrimp with Chipolte Honey Sauce

While anything battered and fried is nice, shrimp is probably my favorite. No, my second favorite. My first favorite is calamari with extremely garlicky tatziki. But shrimp is a close second. I found this recipe on cooking.com. We were testing this out to serve at our Christmas brunch, but ultimately decided we had enough food and I really didn't want to be deep frying in the kitchen with a house full of people. But these were really great, and I look forward to making them again. I love chipolte peppers and honey is a wonderful complement in the sauce.
So here's the sauce cooking away:

Sauce:
2 dried chipolte peppers, stemmed and seeded
1 tomato quartered
1/2 small onion, sliced
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup honey
2 tb red wine vinegar
Combine the chiles, tomato, onion, garlic, water and salt in a small pot and simmer over low heat until the chiles are soft, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, cool slightly, and puree. Stir in the honey and vinegar and set aside.

You need to make the batter at least 30 minutes ahead of time.
Batter:
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup beer
Combine the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the beer and whisk until smooth. Set aside for at least 30 minutes, or up to 4 hours.

Heat some oil in a pot to about 350'. Take your peeled and deveined shrimp (1 1/4 lbs), lightly flour them, then dunk them in the batter and cook until golden brown. Drain well and serve with the chipolte honey sauce.