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Saturday, December 06, 2008

Coconut and Beer Battered Shrimp

Seasonal Recipe of the Week
Here is a recipe for coconut battered shrimp with a Cajun flair from Paul Prudhomme of New Orleans. You can also have it as a main course over some dirty rice and maybe try to work in a vegetable. On the side. This recipe makes 6 main dish or 12 appetizer servings.

Ingredients for seasoning mix
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 1/4 teaspoons garlic powder
3/4 teaspoons onion powder
3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
3/4 teaspoon oregano leaves

Ingredients for battered shrimp
2 eggs
3/4 cup beer
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 3/4 cup flour divided
4 dozen cleaned shrimp with tails left on
3 cups grated coconut
oil for deep frying

Procedure
Combine all the spices for the seasoning mix in a bowl. From that bowl take 2 tablespoons and mix with the eggs, 1 1/4 cups of the flour, beer, and baking powder. Whisk till smooth. At this altitude, I often add a bit of extra water to make the mixture a little thinner. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining flour with 1 tablespoon of the spice mixture. Save extra Cajun spice mix for another day. Set up one more bowl for flaked coconut. Now take the shrimp, hold by the tail and dip in flour, shake off excess, then the batter and then the coconut. Heat fryer oil to 350 and fry about 30 seconds to one minute, till golden brown and crispy. You can also fry them ahead of time and reheat them in the oven before serving. Prudhomme suggests serving them with an orange, mustard and horseradish sauce. Personally I don’t find they need a sauce.