cracker crack
A couple of weeks ago I was at Takashimaya's food hall and came across a counter selling Japanese shrimp crackers. The salesperson offered me a sample and with that I was sold. I bought a box of the stuff for J, who I knew would love it.
Those crackers are like crack. Each handmade piece crunches satisfyingly before melting in the mouth. It tastes like the essence of shrimp - shell, head (the best part!) and all, and if you look closer at the texture of the cracker, you can see how the shrimp has been mashed finely before being baked and fried. Compared to these, local shrimp keropok taste like they are made of 99.8% flour and 0.02% shrimp.
They are from a Nagoya company called Bankaku which has apparently been cranking them out since 1889. When I was paying for my crackers, I also saw large crackers made of an entire flattened shrimp, antennae and all. Now THAT I would love to try, but they were part of some crazily expensive gift hamper set and not sold on their own so I could only salivate from a distance.
J and I have been rationing the packets and trying to savour each morsel as slowly as possible. We're down to our last packet and now I'm just waiting for the Christmas madness in town to subside so that I can return to buy some more! I told J that he should just buy me the gift hamper for Christmas and he thinks I'm nuts, but I think they would make a great present - for me, at least.
Those crackers are like crack. Each handmade piece crunches satisfyingly before melting in the mouth. It tastes like the essence of shrimp - shell, head (the best part!) and all, and if you look closer at the texture of the cracker, you can see how the shrimp has been mashed finely before being baked and fried. Compared to these, local shrimp keropok taste like they are made of 99.8% flour and 0.02% shrimp.
They are from a Nagoya company called Bankaku which has apparently been cranking them out since 1889. When I was paying for my crackers, I also saw large crackers made of an entire flattened shrimp, antennae and all. Now THAT I would love to try, but they were part of some crazily expensive gift hamper set and not sold on their own so I could only salivate from a distance.
J and I have been rationing the packets and trying to savour each morsel as slowly as possible. We're down to our last packet and now I'm just waiting for the Christmas madness in town to subside so that I can return to buy some more! I told J that he should just buy me the gift hamper for Christmas and he thinks I'm nuts, but I think they would make a great present - for me, at least.