Ebi Fry and Re-ment (Exquisite Fake Japanese Miniature Food)

Ebi Fry is basically breaded and fried shrimp –a diner-like comfort food I was introduced to while living in Japan.  It’s commonly served with rice, some shredded raw cabbage, and miso soup as a “set” meal.  I like to eat it with thick Worcestershire sauce or tartar sauce.

Jamie helped me make Ebi Fry for dinner yesterday.  He’s been wanting me to make it ever since he received the most amazing gift from his “Auntie Cheryl”, a close friend of ours who grew up with Denis.

I present to you….. RE-MENT!

If you are not familiar with these amazing miniature Japanese foods you MUST– I implore you, you MUST check out the You Tube videos of RR Cherrypie!  We first saw Re-ment models in these crazily hypnotic and soothing videos and then saw the real thing at Mitsuwa in NJ!  Jamie loved them and wanted a set, but they are a bit pricey and really — they aren’t a toy!

It says it right on the box!

Cheryl found them on ebay and presented Jamie with not ONE set but TEN!

Plus, a kitchen!

Examining the loot.

Check out the cuteness:

Storage drawer

This toaster oven looks just like the one I used to have in Japan!

One of the sets is a miniature Ebi Fry.

The amazing thing about these miniatures, as you can see from the videos, is that they show the foods at different stages of cooking and they are SO life-like!

Comes with raw shrimp, breaded shrimp, and fried shrimp.

Frying oil has a little hole in it so you can fit shrimp in.

It even comes with a little paper towel roll on which to “drain” your fried shrimp.

Each set also comes with a recipe to make the dish.

For our (real) Ebi Fry, we used a combination of large and jumbo shrimp.

Lego Batman is impressed by the jumbo shrimp on the right!

You can find Panko at Asian markets and sometimes in the International sections of grocery stores.

Jamie did all the breading himself:

I’m not sure which looks more tasty — the real version or the miniature version!

All I can say is:  Everyone should have an Auntie Cheryl in one’s life!  Thanks, Cheryl!!

Ebi Fry (Breaded Fried Shrimp) loosely translated from Re-ment Set

Ingredients (4 servings)

12 shrimp  (jumbo size works better)

2 teaspoons oil (we omitted this)

1 tablespoon milk (we omitted this as well)

flour for dredging ( we used about 1/3 cup)

1 egg, beaten

Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

Oil for frying

1. Devein and clean shrimp, but leave tails on.
2. Place shrimp on backs and make small diagonal slashes on the shrimp bellies (this will help it to stay straight when fried). Chop tips off of shrimp tails and squeeze out excess water with the side of the knife (this will prevent splattering when frying).
3. Season with salt and pepper.  Let sit in oil and milk for awhile to remove any odors (I skipped this step because my shrimp was really fresh and I didn’t think it was necessary).  Pat dry.
4. Dredge shrimp in flour, dust off, then dredge in egg, then coat in Panko.
5. Heat oil to 355 degrees F.  Slowly ease in shrimp from the tails. (I actually didn’t deep fry ours — I just sauteed in about 1/2-inch of oil.)
6. Fry shrimp for about 1 minute turning once or twice until golden.

Direct translation:  When oil makes a sound like “juwajuwa” and becomes like “pichi-pichi”, it is OK (done)!