After I completed my stint as a judge on My Kitchen Rules, I was left with one piece of unfinished business… At Matt and KT’s instant restaurant on the show, their menu was designed to reflect Matt’s Indigenous Australian roots by showcasing ingredients such as crocodile. While there were some flaws in the execution of their “popcorn crocodile” – a play on popcorn chicken or shrimp – the consensus around the table was that the dish could make croc appealing even to the least adventurous eater. It just needed some workshopping to perfect it.

And that’s how Matt and KT came to be in my kitchen, discussing how to make their idea the crunchiest, easiest and most delicious entree possible.

I’ve enlisted my long-time collaborator, chef Emma Warren, to help. She has worked with both me and Karen Martini on our books and projects, and has written her own books (Islas and The Catalan Kitchen). She is my guru when it comes to frying.

We quickly realise that, when making crunchy croc “a thing”, it will come down to how we crumb or batter it, and what we use to highlight the flavours. So we scrawled some ideas on the back of a brown paper bag and set to work. 

Here are the four best ideas we came up with.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by delicious. Australia (@deliciousaus)

GENERAL NOTES ON COOKING WITH CROC
If croc is too expensive, too scary or too hard to find then all these recipes will work with chicken thighs.

1. CROC CLOUDS

How good is eating fried stuff out of a paper bag? There is something quintessentially Australian about the sound of a crusty chiko roll or some fried dim sims scraping around when you shake it. So why not make what’s inside quintessentially Australian, too?

Croc is a light, mild-tasting meat with a texture and cooking time somewhere between chicken and a meaty white fish.

So we thought perhaps it would embrace a lighter Japanese or Korean-style batter. And, after about four minutes in the deep-fat fryer, the tempura-like coating resulted in a puffed-up cloud of airy batter with a nugget of tender croc in the middle.

These went into a paper bag with sprigs of saltbush that had also been fried, which added the seasoning, a drizzle of chilli-and- crushed-Indigenous-pepperberry caramel and a good dusting of dried Davidson plum powder (for its pretty pink colour and its fruity sourness). It was freaking delicious.

THE RECIPE:
We floured 350g of 3cm chunks of croc fillet with glutinous rice flour and then coated them in a fluffy white batter before frying. This batter was a mix of 100g glutinous rice flour, 100g potato starch and 1 tsp bicarb with 3 lightly beaten egg whites, 150ml cold soda water and 50ml vodka, beaten to combine and aerate. We tried this without vodka but the end result wasn’t as crispy and light.

The chilli caramel was made by melting 150g sugar in a pan, then adding 150ml water, thinly sliced red chilli and 2 tsp white wine vinegar once the sugar had turned into a bronze caramel. Some finger lime carpels would have been an ace addition here. 

2. POPCORN CROC

Taking an old-school southern fried chicken approach to the crocodile was going to be a winner. We marinated croc fillet cubes in buttermilk with smoked paprika for 30 minutes at room temperature, then double-dusted the croc in a mix of rice flour and cornflour and let it rest for 10 minutes.

To coat, the croc pieces were quickly re-dunked in the buttermilk marinade and then coated in a mix of rice flour, cornflour and potato starch flavoured with paprika, and garlic and onion powders. This combination makes for a supremely crunchy, strong crust after frying.

We flicked some buttermilk into the flour bowl to get clumps of the flour that could be pressed onto each piece of croc for extra crunch. Fried until deeply golden, these were the perfect popcorn crocs, still tender but wonderfully noisy to eat.

They looked pretty plated with a swoosh of creme fraiche, a drizzle of that pepperberry caramel, and a couple of lemony yellow wood sorrel leaves from the garden.

THE RECIPE:
For the marinade (to coat 500g of croc) we used 600ml buttermilk, 2 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp lemon juice. For the coating, we used 1 cup rice flour, 1 cup potato starch, 2 tbs potato starch and 2 tsp baking powder. Then mix in the classic southern chicken combo of 1 tsp onion powder, and another of paprika to flavour.

Make Nornie Bero’s saltbush pepperberry crocodile here.

Related story: Matt Preston lifts the lid on his favourite pie recipes

3. TACODILES

Overexcited by the success of this frying method, we decided to use the popcorn croc in tacos. KT made my instant mayo first and loaded a third of it with a bunch of finely-chopped coriander stems and leaves.

Warm tacos were spread with some of the coriander mayo, topped with golden croc pieces and then garnished with some pineapple, cucumber batons, spring onion and quick-pickled poblano chillies.

THE RECIPE:
After KT’s time-sucking trials in their instant restaurant making mayo, this cheat’s solution of blitzing 1 tbs Dijon mustard, 1 tbs lime juice, a whole raw egg and 350ml grapeseed oil together with a stick blender in a few seconds would have been welcome back then.

We did also try adding a creamy guacamole, with the avocado mashed with a little cream cheese (1 tbs for each small avocado), and the adding crunch of a diced jalapeno and two spring onions cut into coins. We all felt the guac fought a bit with the mayo and overwhelmed the taco’s balance so it is very much a case of either/or.

4. CROC CHOY BAO

So far, we had bombarded the croc with sweetness and creaminess, but we felt it might also benefit – as some fried things do – from adding freshness. First, we turned to my trusty oven-baked nuggets recipe for inspiration.

Croc can be a little wet, and wetness is the enemy of crunch, so we floured the croc first, then dunked it in melted butter and finally in panko crumbs, which had been seasoned with dried shiitake mushrooms (blitzed into a powder) and dried crushed saltbush. It was Emma’s smart idea to use the shiitake to bring some umami to the party (grating in parmesan as I usually do for my oven-baked nuggets didn’t feel right). These worked best cooked harder and faster than my usual nuggets, so preheat your fan-forced oven to 220°C and check them after five minutes. They should take about seven to cook.

To go with this, we made a chunky salsa of pineapple, jalapenos, yellow capsicum and Vietnamese mint (which has a crazy, largely secret, love affair with pineapple). Then we dressed it with the flesh of bush limes, which are like a slightly less poppy finger lime. If you can get finger limes, use them instead. If you can’t get either, scrape off the flesh and the juice of a lime.

To plate, we drew a stripe of mayo on separated baby gem lettuce leaves. Then we added two of the croc nuggets and topped this with pineapple salsa and some Chinese crispy chilli oil. 

THE RECIPE:
For every 250g of croc chunks, you’ll need 100g melted butter, and ½ cup panko crumbs mixed with 20g shiitake powder (or you could use ready-ground porcini powder) and 5g crushed and crumbled saltbush.

To make the salsa, cut half a fresh pineapple into 3cm pieces and mix with 2 chopped jalapenos and ½ chopped yellow capsicum. Dress with the flesh and juice of 3 bush limes or 2 finger limes, plus a dozen small Vietnamese mint leaves.

Related story: Matt Preston’s best lazy cooking hacks, for when you can’t be fudged