Crispy and Delicious Coconut Shrimp Recipe

There are two rules in life. One, everything is better between two slices of bread, and two, everything is better when it's deep fried. Now normally when I want to eat deep fried food, I like to go out and let someone else get hot and bothered on my behalf, but my coconut shrimp are so easy and so unruffling to make, I am more than happy to cook them every time I need to eat them, and that is very often. And to go with my hot, crisp and juicy shrimp, I make a cool, smooth and golden dipping sauce. It's incredibly simple. To a bowl of coconut milk yogurt, I add sea salt plates and ground turmeric. Stir everything together, and that's it. The work of a mere moment. So my golden yogurt can mellow in flavor and deepen in tone, while I get on with my dredging operation. It's a bit of a production line, but it's not complicated. Rice flour for the initial dredge, which is grittier than regular plain flour and seems to add an extra rustling crispness. Into my second dish, an egg. I'm going to mix the egg with a little sea salt, and into my third dish, some desiccated coconut, or as we call it at home, desiccated coconut. And those dry strands make the prawns look like they're wearing a hairy jacket once they've been fried. On top of this, some panko. Now panko are Japanese breadcrumbs, and actually breadcrumbs is a bit of a misnomer because they're flakes rather than crumbs. And again, very dry, which makes everything incredibly crunchy. The mild sweetness of the coconut needs a bit of a kick. And for that, I have cayenne pepper. I like to mix this with my hands. Before I start dredging and dipping, I'm going to tell you about this new method I'm trying because normally when I do this sort of thing, I get what I call goujon fingers, which means I have these balls of rather claggy breadcrumbs at the end of each finger. So I'm going to try and do something I was taught, which is you keep one hand for wet ingredients and one hand for dry. I'm nominating my left hand for wet and my right for dry. So the prawns are wet, so they go in my left hand. These are raw prawns and they're fresh. I don't use frozen because the liquid they give out would make the oil spit too much. The rice flour is dry, so I'm going to use my right hand and first sprinkle a bit on top of the prawns to cover them and turn them. Okay, so dry hand, I'm going to drop them into the eggs wet. The rice flour really helps the egg adhere. Egg is wet, so I'm going to use my left hand now to turn and then lift up each prawn and waggle it over the egg to get rid of any excess and in it goes to the coconut and panko. There you are. And again, I'm going to cover the prawns a bit with this mixture, right hand because it's dry before I turn them and I really think it's important at this stage to give them a proper thick coating and then I like to sort of press and scrunch a bit, just turn everything. So far, so good. And these plump little babies can sit here for safekeeping just for the moment. And that was so much fun, I'm going in again. I have got quite a few more prawns to use up, but I'm very eager now to get on to the eating part of the process. So I'll turn the heat on under the oil and while it heats up, I'll have a bit of a cleanup. The oil is good and hot now, so these plump little commas are ready to be dropped in. When I say dropped in, go gently. Here we are. Best sound. It's important the oil is properly hot because this means by the time the outside is good and golden, the insides will be cooked but still succulent and tender. Right, and while that's carrying on, I'm going to get my sauce ready. Look at this now, golden ointment. My basket, our spider. Let's see how this is all, they're done. They're ready for me and I'm ready for them. Hot crisp prawns, cool smooth dip. And inside all that crispness, the prawns are so lusciously tender. I'm going in again.