How Long Do You Deep Fry Shrimp: Things You Need To Know

Shrimp is one of the most delicious seafood to make out there and you don't need to find any fancy and complicated recipes for it, sometimes you just need to deep-fry it!

But deep frying shrimp can be a little tricky if you do it right, it can be light and wonderfully crispy, but if you don't, it can be damp, sodden, or heavy.

Pre-Heating Your Oil

Choosing the right kind of oil and the heating of the oil is crucial in deep frying.

In this particular dish, we chose Peanut or Canola Oil, because they have high smoke points. Smoke points are the temperature limit of oils where it gives off acrid smoke and renders it unusable.

On estimating the temperature of the oil, you can use chopsticks or wooden spoon, or flours. In using chopsticks or wooden spoon, dip the tip of it and observe if bubbles readily pop up in the surface. In using flour, drop a pinch of it and observe if it turns to brown in 60 seconds, if so, the temperature is already around 365 degrees, and you are good to go.

If, however, you are quite a beginner in cooking, and afraid to take chances in the temperature of your oil, better buy an Oil Thermometer. An oil thermometer is not expensive, but it can be an invaluable tool for your kitchen.

Directions On Cooking

Prepare two baking dishes, fill one with milk, butter, and hot sauce, and then whisk them together. For the other one, also do the same, whisk together the flour, salt, pepper, and cornmeal.

Dredge the two pounds of peeled shrimp into the dry mixture of flour salt, pepper, and cornmeal. Dredge properly and make sure that the shrimps are dried after this. Then dredge it again in the liquid mixture of milk, butter, and sauce, and then back again in the dry mixture.

Fry Them All – For 2-3 Minutes

Finally, our next step is deep frying the dredged Shrimps.

They key thing in this step is to not crowd the pan with too many shrimps. A good rule of thumb in deep frying is not using more than half of the surface of the oil. Because if you put too many shrimps at one time, the temperature of your oil may not keep up and would lower down than necessary, allowing the oil to seep into the food, which will then result in the undesirable damp, sodden, or heavy, deep fried shrimp.

Deep fry each batch for 2-3 minutes, and yes, that is how long to deep fry shrimp. If it already reaches the 2-minute mark, observe if the shrimps acquire a golden brown color, if so, that batch is good to go.

Drain the oil well by using the slotted spoon, and then put the fried shrimps into the plate with paper towels. The towels would help seep the oil from the shrimps, leaving it dry and crispy for you. It is better to serve them while they are still hot.

Storing Your Deep Fried Shrimp

Deep frying your Shrimp is quite easy, isn't it? It is, but sometimes when we prepare this food, leftovers are inevitable. And these shrimps are too delicious for the left-overs to be thrown away, so let's learn a little on how to store them.

You first got to find an airtight container, and place the fried shrimps here. The general idea is that cooked shrimps can only last for 2-3 days, and if they are frozen properly at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, they can last to 2 months.

But it isn't advisable to store your food for this length of time, and the quality of the food would be considerably diminished. You can tell that shrimps are already not good if they smell bad.

Conclusion

With the materials and ingredients present, we discovered that deep frying shrimps are quite easy. The thing to remember is the kind and temperature of our oil, and then the simple and easy directions on preparing our shrimp.

And remember the 2-3 minutes, the exact time on how long you should deep fry shrimp, until it turns into a delicious golden brown appearance. Storing food for a long period of time is not advisable, but cooked shrimps can still be preserved in the refrigerator for a couple of days and even months in the freezer.

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