Home-Fried Shrimp

Home-Fried Shrimp

(serves 4 as a gen­er­ous appetizer)

1 pound raw deveined shrimp, shells off but tails on

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tbsps light cream

1 egg, light­ly beaten

2 cups home­made bread­crumbs, rather fine

¾ cup corn­starch (corn­flour in England)

2 tbsps Pen­zeys Fox Point Seasoning

3 cups rape­seed or canola or saf­flower oil (or enough to come up 2 inch­es in your high-sided skillet)

I do not have a deep fry­er (although I’m tempt­ed now, what with the had­dock, fries and now shrimp on my menu).  So I choose a wide, high-sided skil­let for frying.

Mix the but­ter­milk, cream and egg in a wide, shal­low bowl.  Mix the bread­crumbs, corn­starch and Fox Point in anoth­er wide, shal­low bowl.

Dip the shrimps ful­ly in the but­ter­milk mix­ture and then lay in the bread­crumb mix­ture and turn over and over until as well-coat­ed as you can get them.  Lay on a cook­ie tray or plat­ter in a sin­gle layer.

Heat the oil until a bread­crumb dropped in fries instant­ly.  Place as many shrimps as will loose­ly fit in a sin­gle lay­er and fry on one side until nice and pink (per­haps 1 minute, depend­ing on the size of your shrimps), then with a wire-mesh spoon, turn over each shrimp and cook on the sec­ond side, per­haps 30 sec­ond.  Lay on a thick lay­er of paper tow­el.  Con­tin­ue in batch­es till all shrimps are cooked.  Serve, for total deca­dence with:

Spicy Creamy Dip­ping Sauce

(serves 4)

¼ cup each: hot chilli sauce, may­on­naise and pre­pared horse­rad­ish sauce

juice of ½ lemon

fresh-ground black pepper