Dinner

About 3 months ago, my children started asking me about shrimp. Where do they live? What do they eat? And most importantly: where were their heads??! I found myself trying to give an anatomy lesson on a headless, peeled shrimp. That just would not do. So as luck would have it, I came across some very reasonably priced fully intact shrimp at my Favorite Supermarket (!! The H-Mart!! I believe we have the beginnings of an unhealthy relationship here - more on that on another post). I gleefully stuffed my baggie full and headed home, triumphant.

The children were suitably thrilled and examined one for ages, carefully noting each detail (are these the eyes? Where is that thing with all the poo-poo in it, I don't want to eat that etc etc.). Here is how we cooked the little critters (this is inspired by a Vietnamese cookbook I came across online and for the life of me can't remember the name but will add later when I can find it again).

Vietnamese Salt and Pepper Celebration Shrimp

served with stir-fried asparagus and steamed baby bok choy along with steamed white and brown rice

1C sushi type (short grain) white rice
1C short grain brown rice
Step One: Mix rices and steam.

Asparagus (amt to be determined by # of people you're feeding)
Soy sauce
Toasted sesame oil

Baby bok choy (amt as above), soaked in a bowl of water to remove grit, rinse, repeat)
Chinese cooking wine

1lb or so shrimp with heads and shells, the works
2TB butter (for later in the cooking)

The Coating:
3-4 TB rice flour (gauge it to how many shrimp you have, to be quite honest I'm guessing at the amount here)
1 or 2 tsp white sugar, I did a big, three fingered pinch
Sprinkle powdered ginger
Powdered garlic to taste
Copious amounts of salt and freshly ground pepper

Step Two: Combine all of these dry ingredients in a plastic bag while your wok or large skillet is heating. Add a good coating of oil (I used grapeseed oil) to the wok/pan and then just a little bit more. You don't want to deep fry, but you want enough to dress up these babies and just get them glistening, if you know what I mean. Throw the shrimp in the flour mixture, seal the bag and shake and toss to coat. Make sure your wok is nice and hot. To keep from burning myself and melting my bag, I removed the shrimp from the bag with a slotted spoon, shaking a bit to remove excess coating and put them in a shallow glass pie plate before sliding them into the hot, oiled wok. Just a precaution.

It's important not to let the shrimp sit too long in the flour mixture, sogginess may occur (resulting in a less crisp and less delightful experience later).

Step Three: On medium-high heat, let the shrimp sizzle a bit, but toss once in a while to prevent them from burning (this is where a wok is great). When they begin to get pink, you're almost there. Have your serving dish ready because you don't want them to overcook. When they're almost fully pink, push them to the sides of the wok and throw the lump of butter in the middle. Let it sizzle and sing for a moment or two and then start tossing the shrimp around with it, the butter doesn't have to melt fully for you to start tossing. The most important thing is that you don't overcook the shrimp. Once the butter lump has almost entirely disappeared and the shrimp have no more translucent spots among the new pink color, remove the shrimp to the serving dish, leaving as much butter behind in the wok as possible. The shrimp should be cheerfully pink in color and just barely coated with buttery, crispy, fragrant crumbs from the rice flour coating you dredged them in.

Step Four: Turn the burner to medium heat. Grab your (washed) asparagus and don't bother julienning them Silly, just snap them into bite size pieces over your wok. Cook them in the leftover butter etc mixture from the shrimp. Let them cook for 45 seconds or so and when you notice them turning a brighter green, hit them with a healthy drizzle of soy sauce. Toss them around a bit to coat them and let the soy sauce form a glaze. Drizzle lightly with a bit of sesame oil, toss and remove to serving bowl.  

Keep heat going (ask someone to set the table at this point, keeping in mind that your almost-3 year old may abscond with the spoons, even though he is desirous of setting the table and being a "Helper!!!").

Step Five: Take the drained baby bok choy and toss it in the wok. Salt with a self-confident hand. Pour in several glugs (2? 3?) Of Chinese cooking wine and ... You guessed it, toss, or coat rather. Then put a lid over the whole get-up and let steam while you find the spoons, the children, your sanity - and get ready because dinner is almost ready!

After the bok choy has steamed for a few minutes and turned a lovely bright green and wilted slightly, turn off the heat and you're done! All in one pan, hurrah!

Be sure to include a bowl on the table for shrimp shells. Or you can crunch them up, shells and (eyeballs) and all - I swear! I tried both ways and liked each for different reasons. Serve however strikes your fancy, but I did the following: put rice on plate, asparagus on the side/top of the rice and peeled the shrimp over the lot so the juices and crunchy bits ended up in the rice. I also dipped my shrimp into that divine hot sauce, Sriracha (it has the Rooster on the bottle). If you are squeamish about the heads, just pull them off, suck on them a bit to get the yummy juices etc out or simply pull off and avert eyes as you place them in your shell bowl. It's all personal. I saved the bok choy for last because it was all so drippy and I didn't have room on my plate - ate it right up with my hands. The little bit of butter left in the wok along with the wine was Fantastic for this veg.  All in all a great dinner, and despite this novel-length instructional, it only took about 30 minutes to prepare. If I had had some, I'd have enjoyed a glass of crisp white wine with it, an Italian one perhaps. Or my old stand-by, champagne, of course.
Bon Appetit!


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