Okoy

A lacy deep-fried fritter of whole small shrimp and shredded sweet potato.

Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains shellfish.

Ingredients

• 300 g small shrimp, whole, heads on
• 300 g sweet potato, in fine matchsticks
• 100 g beansprouts
• 100 g cornflour
• 60 g plain flour
• 1 egg
• 200 ml cold water
• 1 teaspoon annatto powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 0.5 teaspoon black pepper
• oil, for deep frying

Method

1. THE SHRIMP GO IN WHOLE, heads and shells on, which is the point of the dish: they crisp right through in the oil and are eaten entire. Peeled, they shrink to pink commas and the fritter has nothing holding it together.
2. Use small shrimp, 3 to 4 cm. Anything bigger will not cook through in the time the batter takes to colour.
3. Batter: cornflour, plain flour, annatto, salt and pepper whisked with the egg and the cold water to the thickness of single cream. Cornflour is most of it, and that is what fries lacy rather than cakey. Keep it COLD.
4. Sweet potato in matchsticks, not grated. Grated, it packs into a solid pad.
5. Fold the sweet potato, beansprouts and shrimp through the batter. There should be barely enough batter to coat -- you want to see the vegetables, not a paste.
6. Oil to 180C, deep enough to float a fritter.
7. Ladle onto a small saucer, slide it off into the oil, and spread it with a fork in the first few seconds so it goes in open and ragged. A compact mound steams inside.
8. 3 to 4 minutes, turning once, until deep gold and rigid. Lift it and listen -- it should sound hollow against the spoon.
9. Drain upright in a sieve rather than flat on paper, so the underside does not sit in its own oil.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes