EEE Cooks: Coconut Beer-Battered Shrimp (Recipe)

Frying at home produces deliciously crisp and hot items—no waiting for the waitress to to bring our food while it cools and the coating gets soggy. As with any frying, we take appropriate precautions here: we use our heavy enamel-coated Dutch oven, a good fry thermometer, and do not put too much oil in the pot. We have been wanting to fry shrimp and, since we find ourselves with coconut that needs using, we make a go of it here. The only thing missing is some mango chutney for dipping!

We start by getting the batter ready. In a large bowl, we combine the rice flour with ½ cup of the beer. We stir with a whisk until the batter is smooth. Then we add the coconut and set aside while we start to heat the oil.

We put our Dutch oven on the stove and put a few inches of oil in it for frying. We turn on the heat to medium-high and put a deep-fat fry thermometer into the oil. We want the oil to reach 370° F to start frying.

On a large plate, we place the all-purpose flour to help keep the beer batter coating on the shrimp.

Meanwhile, we defrost our shrimp in a colander in the sink according to the package directions.

When the oil is almost ready, we check the consistency of the batter. It is a little thick, so we thin it with some of the beer. We want to make it the consistency of pancake batter.

When the oil is hot enough, we put, using clean hands, five of the shrimp onto the plate of flour, tossing to coat, then into the batter, then onto the flour again, back in the batter pressing the coconut on, and finally (carefully) into the hot oil. We wash our hands well and use our “spider” strainer to remove the shrimp when cooked. We want them nicely browned and cooked all the way through. This takes about 3 minutes.

We remove them to a paper towel lined plate and sprinkle with salt. We repeat the frying with more shrimp, waiting each time for the temperature to reach 370° F again.

We could have transferred the already cooked shrimp into a warm oven, but we do not bother here. The shrimp are too delicious to wait!

Coconut Beer-Battered Shrimp

Servings and Times

Tools and Appliances

Ingredients