Shrimp Rice Crackers (海老せんべい, Ebi Senbei)

The first thing to understand about ebi senbei is that it isn't a rice cracker wearing a little shrimp perfume. In the Mikawa Bay way, the shrimp leads. The rice dough is there to hold it, dry cleanly, and break with a neat snap under the teeth. If the shrimp are sweet and glistening fresh, you need very little else.

People see a paper-thin cracker and think factory work. At home, the labor is patient, not difficult: grind, steam, roll, dry, bake. The drying is the detail that decides it. Rice flour carries water stubbornly, and if the center stays damp, the cracker bakes leathery instead of crisp. Dry it until the surface turns matte and it lifts from the parchment like a leaf, and the oven can finish the job.

This is food for tea, for sake, for the small plate set out before a meal settles into rice and soup. We don't pile them high. A few crackers, slightly overlapped, with space around them, say more than a crowded heap. Leave it room. Even a cracker knows when it's being fussed over too much.