Coconut Shrimp

These will turn out fantastic. They’re best served warm or right off the frying pan.

This isn’t a recipe so much as a process.

  • Remove the shells from the thawed, uncooked shrimp. Traditionally, the tail part is left on, but it’s annoying at eating time, so you can take the whole shell off if you want.
  • Rinse off the shrimp an remove most of the excess water, but leave them damp.
  • Heat a frying pan to medium heat and put about two tablespoons of butter in. Have lots more butter available.
  • Prepare a shallow bowl with flour in it.
  • Beat two eggs into a second shallow bowl and put that next to the flour bowl.
  • Put coconut flakes into a third shallow bowl and put that next to the egg bowl.
  • Put a paper towel between the coconut bowl and the frying pan.
  • Put a paper towel after the frying pan.

You should have an assembly line that looks like the following:

  • Shrimp
  • Flour bowl
  • Egg bowl
  • Coconut bowl
  • Paper towel
  • Frying pan
  • Paper towel

Put about 15 shrimp through the assembly line. First dip them in the flour bowl, then dip them in the egg batter and let the excess drip off, then roll them in the coconut, and place them on the first paper towel if you don’t have room in the pan. Put the shrimp in the pan for about 2 minutes on each side. Watch the butter and add more as necessary to make sure there’s enough that it doesn’t start burning. Also watch the coconut flakes that fall off. They have a tendency to burn after a while, and then they stick to the new batches of shrimp and look bad, so occasionally you may have to just wipe the pan clean and start over with new butter. After the shrimp are lightly brown, take them out of the pan and put them on the far paper towel so they can dry off a little (that is, so the excess butter can soak into the towel).

Serve immediately.