Some of the best ways to make sure that shrimp cakes turn out well are to form them properly and to keep the oil at the proper temperature and volume. Making shrimp cakes requires the use of a pan deep enough to fill with enough oil to reach at least half way up the edges of the cakes. The quality of the cakes will be largely dependent on the ingredients and recipe used, but there are some tips that can help make sure that shrimp cakes come out well whatever the recipe.
There are a few things a cook can do to keep shrimp cakes from falling apart when they are cooking. First, the ingredients of the cake should be bound together, which is usually accomplished by adding eggs to the mixture. The eggs should be thoroughly mixed into the batter so that this binding agent is spread throughout. Once the ingredients are mixed, the cakes should be formed in preparation for cooking. Refrigerating the cakes for about a half hour before cooking them can help the cakes set up.
Forming shrimp cakes so that they are consistent in their thickness is important as well. Making sure that each cake is the same thickness across the entire diameter will help them cook evenly. If the cakes are all the same size they will also cook at the same rate which makes it easier to cook a number of them at the same time. A measuring cup can be used to make sure that each cake has the same volume of ingredients, though it is not necessary to be exact when forming shrimp cakes.
When cooking shrimp cakes, it is important to heat the oil to the proper cooking temperature before adding the first cake. Placing a cake in the oil before it has reached the proper temperature will make it harder to cook it through evenly and may lead to a cake that is burned on the outside and undercooked in the middle. Oil should also be added between batches to make up for the oil that was soaked up by the previous batch. When oil is added, it also needs to be allowed to come up to temperature before another batch of cakes is added. Some of the oil absorbed by the shrimp cakes can be removed by placing them on brown paper bags or paper towels immediately after cooking, turning them once after a few minutes and moving them to a clean section of the paper.
