I hate sweetened coconut shreds. I don’t know if it is the propylene glycol or sodium metabisulfite, but there is an odd chemical taste to the stuff. When I happened across a recipe for making coconut shrimp at home, I was hesitant to try it. A lot of flavors get lost in cooking – I’ve tried unsuccessfully to get citrus hop flavours to come through in beer battered fried fish, and purposed a terrible tasting six-pack from Rogue for fish and chips because none of the off flavours are present in the finished meal. But I didn’t want to chance enduring that strange sweetened coconut taste. But you can make your own sweetened coconut shreds. I happen to have big flakes of dried coconut, so the first step is to run them through the food processor long enough to have small flakes. Measure the small flakes – I had two cups. Take an equal volume of water (here’s where the measurement gets funky – I used the dry measuring cup for the water so I don’t mean “1 cup of water per cup of small coconut flakes” as properly measured). Boil the water in a large saute pan, then add sugar until no more dissolves. Then stir in the coconut flakes. Reduce heat and simmer until the water is absorbed/evaporated. Voila, sweetened coconut bits. Edible ones!

Put a cup of flour in a bowl, and add about 1/4 t each of salt and pepper.

Put a few eggs into a second bowl, add a pinch of salt.

In a third bowl, mix a 1:1 ratio of panko bread crumbs and sweetened coconut flakes. Mix to combine.

Using thawed, peeled, deveined shrimp – lightly coat a shrimp in flour, then dip in egg. Place shrimp into the panko/coconut mixture, spoon mixture over shrimp, and lightly press. Gently remove shrimp from the pile and drop into hot oil to cook. Repeat, again and again and again 🙂 Remove when the shrimp float and have turned golden. (You may not want to use the largest shrimp you can find as the coating may get overcooked before the shrimp is done.)