I have fried shrimp many times over the years. I tend to stick with a commercial batter since the results are consistent. My attempts to make homemade batters have always resulted in coatings that are too thick and bread like for my taste.
The hardest part of making this week’s recipe was finding the small shrimp. The recipe calls for shrimp “as small as possible”. Visiting the grocery stores I discovered that most small shrimp are precooked. This is something I never noticed before since I have a favorite shrimp size that I use most times. After a little searching, I was able to find 70-80 count raw shrimp.
The shrimp are dipped in a batter made of yeast, water, eggs, flour and salt before frying. Once mixed together this leavened batter has a consistency of very thin, pancake batter. I skewered a few shrimp with the optional toothpick for ease of dipping. I managed just fine without the toothpick also. Frying the shrimp was a little scary. The oil did more popping then usual due to the high water content of the batter. No worries. I used a skillet this time. Next time I will use my deep fryer.

Each shrimp was golden brown with a very light, extremely crisp coating. I love how the batter did not mask the taste of the shrimp. I was eating them so quickly I almost forgot I needed a few for pictures. Only one thing would make this recipe better…letting someone else cook them so I could focus all my attention on enjoying each and every one.