New discoveries in fried food

[spinbaby]

Now that I’m more or less on my feet again after breaking my ankle, I’ve been busy in the kitchen. Today for lunch, I made panko breaded shrimp, which were absolutely delicious and I learned a couple of things along the way.

First, I’ve finally found the perfect setup for deep-frying at home: an induction cooktop, an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven, and a good vent fan. The cooktop keeps the perfect temperature, which is an absolute game changer—no more fussing with burners and thermometers.

My second discovery came from watching Japanese cooks on YouTube. When they breaded food for deep frying, instead of doing flour, egg, and crumb bound breading as we do in the West, they make a slurry of flour and water, then dip the food in that before rolling in crumbs. I tried this with the shrimp and it was a good sight easier and also resulted in a lighter breading—a win all around.