Today on Sugar Spun Run, we'll be making coconut shrimp.
Hey Sugar Spun Bakers, Sam here! And today, I have another carefully tested,
well researched, and perfected recipe.
This one yields crisp, perfectly flavored and perfectly breaded coconut shrimp.
It's better than anything you can get in the restaurant. I
think you're going to absolutely love it,
so let's go ahead and get started. Now one of the things that I struggled with
when I first started developing this recipe was that the coconut
and the panko breading that I was using didn't adhere fully to the shrimp.
We were having gaps and bald spots in the shrimp and I just didn't love that,
so I took a page from my mozzarella
sticks, and I decided that I would blend together the coconut
and the panko to make a nice, finer breading.
So that is where we're going to start today. We're going to break down this coconut,
so it's not quite so large and stringy. We have one and a half cups of sweetened shredded coconut.
Yes, I do use the sweetened coconut. And we have three fourths cup of plain panko.
Now we're going to combine these, pop our lid on,
and we are going to blend this until that coconut is no longer quite so stringy.
You don't wanna have a dust, but you do wanna break things up a bit.
I'm just gonna pulse it several times. Okay,
so that was fifteen, one second pulses.
Let's take a look. Well it smells good, smells nice and tropical.
Coconut's still a little bit more than I'd like it to be.
Let's do another five pulses.
Alright, I'm happy with how this looks, so I'm going to go ahead and pour this into a bowl.
Always watch out for that blade. Alright,
so we have our coconut mixture. We'll set that aside.
And in a separate dish, we are going to whisk together two large eggs.
Now we're going to beat up these eggs
so the yolks are niely broken up and we have some scrambled eggs.
And in yet another bowl, we are going to stir together two thirds cup of all purpose flour,
a fourth teaspoon of salt—this is just table salt
—one fourth teaspoon of garlic powder,
and, for just a little bit of heat, I'm going to add an eighth teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
Stir this together. And now we need to talk about our shrimp.
We are going to be using extra large shrimp for today's recipe.
Now my recipe calls for two pounds. We've made enough breading for two pounds,
but I'm just going to be starting with one pound for now.
These are thawed shrimp. You can see that the tails are on,
but that they have been peeled
and deveined. Now we're going to gently pat the shrimp just to dry them off a bit.
And we'll sprinkle them all over with a bit of kosher salt.
I'm gonna flip them off this paper towel.
We’ll do another light sprinkle. Alright,
now the dredging begins. This can get a little bit messy,
so I like to set up a station here. I've got my panko breadcrumbs.
I've got my, my panko and my coconut.
I've got my egg and I have my flour mixture.
Rearrange those so you can see them better. Got my paper towel underneath to catch any spills.
Alright, we'll take our shrimp, hold it by the tail,
and we are going to dredge this all over in our flour mixture.
Try to keep the tail neat. You don't want to get flour and batter all over that.
That's how you're going to be holding it when you eat it.
So we'll try to keep that neat, but otherwise get the shrimp all coated in flour.
Next, we'll take it over to our egg. We're going to dip it in the egg,
make sure it's completely coated the egg. And let the excess drip off.
Help it out a little bit there. Finally,
take it over to your coconut mixture, and I'm going to use my hands to help get this to adhere.
And again, the nice thing about my coconut shrimp is that you
should have a nice, even coating all over.
The shrimp should be entirely coated in coconut and panko.
So once yours looks like this, you can return it to your baking sheet
and just repeat with the rest of your shrimp.
Now one thing you do wanna watch out
for while you're breading the shrimp: after you dip it in the egg,
give it a double look. Sometimes it'll drip off that flour and you'll see some dry spots of flour.
Just go ahead and dip it again
because you want that whole shrimp to be coated with that egg wash before you take it over the panko
or else you're going to have ball spots.
So once you’ve breaded all of your shrimp,
you're going to go ahead and place these in the refrigerator while you start heating your oil.
Now, let's head over to the stovetop where we're going to
start heating our oil to cook these shrimp.
You're going to need a large heavy bottomed pot. I like to use a Dutch oven,
and we're going to fill this about two to three inches deep with vegetable oil.
You could use a smaller pot, but you just can't cook as many shrimp at the same time if you do that.
Now, you're going to need a thermometer and we're going to fit this to the side.
Make sure the bottom of your thermometer is not touching the bottom of the pot.
And we're going to turn our stovetop heat to medium,
and we're going to heat this oil to three hundred and seventy five degrees Fahrenheit.
So while oil is heating up, I like to prepare my dipping sauce.
This is not a super homemade sauce,
definitely not from scratch, but it is nice and easy,
and it complements the shrimp really well. If you want to make this,
you're going to need one third cup of sweet chili sauce
and three tablespoons of apricot preserves.
Can't wait for somebody to tell me I'm saying apricot wrong.
Now, the preserves are usually a little bit too thick to mix in easily to the chili sauce,
so what I'm going to do is I'm just gonna pop it in the microwave in ten second intervals.
So here it is after about twenty seconds in the microwave,
it's nice and smooth and easy to stir.
So now I'm just gonna add this in with chili sauce
and stir these together until they're nice
and well combined for a simple, not quite homemade, but still delicious,
sweet and tangy sauce. If you like a lot of dipping sauce,
go ahead and double this. It's totally fine.
Alright, once your oil is at three hundred and seventy five degrees,
grab your shrimp from the fridge and we're going to cook them in batches of about three at a time.
Now we're going to carefully lower them into oil.
I'm just going to use tongs and hold them by the tail and lower them in.
And we're going to cook them until they're nice and golden brown in color.
This isn't going to take very long.
This is about thirty seconds and mine are a nice, deep golden brown color.
Now I'm going to remove them with a spider.
I'm going to transfer them to a paper towel lined plate.
And then I'll repeat with another batch of shrimp.
However, I wanna note that it's super important that you monitor your oil temperature.
It needs to say it's three seventy five, sometimes it drops between
batches. If it drops, just let it get back to temperature.
Now once I feel that I have a good handle on my oil temperature and how long things are taking,
and if my pot is large enough, I may cook more shrimp at a time,
like maybe four or five at a time.
It can be hard to see them because of all the bubbles that form,
so I'll just gently turn them as they're cooking because I wanna keep an eye on them.
I don't want them to overcook. Once again,
that was only about thirty seconds. And just repeat until all of your shrimp have been cooked.
You're going to want to serve these immediately while they're still warm.
You don't want to burn yourself, but you still want them nice and hot
and serve them with your not-so-homemade dipping sauce.
And that is how easy it is to make my favorite coconut shrimp. I really
think you guys are going to love this recipe.
And if you try it out, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Ouch, that's hot. I really love hearing from you.
Thank you guys so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
Mmm, that’s good.