In my kitchen, there are a handful of Asian ingredients that I’m never out of. There’s the usual like soy sauce, oyster sauce and ginger, of course. But, there’s the other category of foods that are so versatile, they can be used in any style of cooking, whether Asian, Italian or Greek.
What is Panko?
And at the top of that list is panko bread crumbs. Panko is a Japanese breadcrumb that really shouldn’t be named “crumb” but rather bread “flakes.” It’s incredibly light, airy and crisp/crunchy when fried. What I like about panko is that it doesn’t absorb as much oil or grease as regular breadcrumbs and its super-thin flakes create an airy, lacy coating that you can’t achieve with regular breadcrumbs. Making crab cakes? Use panko for a lighter, delicate result. Baked fried chicken is ten times crisper with a panko coating. In this recipe, the coconut shrimp is coated in flour, egg/coconut milk and then a panko/coconut flake mixture.
How To Get Panko to Stick to Shrimp
Do you know why we have to coat the shrimp in all of those ingredients, in exactly that order? Well let’s work backwards. If you want a crunchy coating, whether it’s panko, breadcrumbs, crushed potato chips or crushed saltines – you gotta get it to stick to the food. Try taking a naked shrimp and patting panko on the surface. It doesn’t stick well. If you try to fry it, all the coating will come off into the oil. But guess what? Panko sticks to egg! So does egg stick to shrimp? Nope. It slides right off. And hey, egg sticks to flour! Flour sticks to shrimp! Now you get it? Serve with Sweet Chili Mayo for dipping.
