Squid In Salty Shrimp Sauce (蝦醬鮮魷, Haa1 Zoeng3 Sin1 Jau4)

 

This recipe was updated on 11 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

Calamari is usually used when naming or titling a dish with squid in it. It seems rather odd that people are more likely to eat a dish with calamari in the title than squid, given that they’re the same ingredient. So why does this dish title have squid in the name? The main reasons are that the name of this classic dish is the literal translation from Chinese and that’s the name this dish is known by.

This is not the traditional preparation for this dish, which usually consists just of squid stir fried in shrimp sauce, since I’ve added some vegetables to the recipe. Carved squid pieces and squid tentacles are available in the frozen section of your local Asian supermarket. You can of course use fresh squid if it’s available. I happen to like eating squid tentacles, so I include them in dishes when I can, but some are not fans, so feel free to not use them in the dish.

My local farmer’s market had purple long beans, which are usually green in color. I’ve never eaten before this type of long beans before, so I couldn’t resist buying and using the purple long beans in this dish. If you can’t get long beans (whatever the color), substitute regular green beans.

The most important ingredient in this dish is the shrimp sauce, which is an odd purple color. Shrimp sauce is, to say the least, a pungent mixture of ground fermented shrimp and salt, and for some, pungent is just a nice way to say it smells. No matter what someone thinks about the smell of this sauce, you can’t make this dish without it. Shrimp sauce and squid just naturally taste good together.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

1 lb.	454 g.	One package frozen carved squid pieces (魷魚, jau4 jyu4), defrosted
1 lb.	454 g.	One package frozen squid tentacles (魷魚, jau4 jyu4), defrosted
1 lb.	500 g.	Long beans (豆角, dau6 gok3), cut into 2-inch (5 cm.) pieces
1	1	Red bell pepper (紅椒, hung4 ziu1), cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm.) pieces
3 stalks	3 stalks	Green onions (葱, cung1), cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm.) pieces on the diagonal
½ in.	15 mm.	Knob of ginger (薑, goeng1), crushed in a garlic press
2 cloves	2 cloves	Garlic (蒜, syun3), crushed in a garlic press
		Oil for cooking

 

Sauce Ingredients

2 Tbs.	30 ml.	Lee Kum Kee brand shrimp sauce (幼滑蝦醬, jau3 waat6 haa1 zoeng3) or equivalent
2 Tbs.	30 ml.	Shaoxing rice wine (紹興酒, siu6 hing1 zau2) or dry sherry
½ tsp.	2.5 ml.	Ground white pepper (白胡椒, baak6 wu4 ziu1)
½ Tbs.	7.5 ml.	Sesame oil (麻油, maa4 jau4)
2 tsp.	10 ml.	Corn starch (粟粉, suk1 fan2)
4 tsp.	20 ml.	Water

 

Equipment

		Garlic press
14 in.	35.5 cm.	Wok or pan

 

Purple Long Beans (豆角, dau6 gok3)

Preparation Instructions

1. If using frozen carved squid and/or tentacles, thaw in a covered container overnight in the refrigerator. Take the squid out of the refrigerator at least one hour before cooking and discard any liquid that remains in the covered container.
2. Wash and cut the long beans into 2-inch (5 cm.) pieces.                          
3. Wash and cut the red bell pepper into ½- (15 mm.) x 1-inch (2.5 cm.) pieces. First cut off 

   

   Lee Kum Kee Brand Shrimp Sauce
   (幼滑蝦醬, jau3 waat6 haa1 zoeng3)

   the ends of the bell pepper, leaving an open cylinder. Remove the seeds and central core of the bell pepper and make one cut lengthwise to open the cylinder. Flatten the open bell pepper cylinder and cut ½-inch (15 mm.) wide by 1-inch (2.5 cm.) pieces.
4. Crush the ginger and garlic in a garlic press and put into a small bowl.
5. Wash and cut the green onions into 1-inch (2.5 cm.) pieces on the diagonal.
6. Put the Lee Kum Kee brand shrimp sauce or equivalent into a small bowl.
7. Prepare and mix the sauce in another small bowl: add the Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry, ground white pepper, and sesame oil. In another small bowl, prepare the corn starch slurry by mixing the corn starch and water together.

Cooking Instructions

 

Ideally, the shrimp sauce is added to oil in a hot wok before adding the squid, and the squid gets coated with the shrimp sauce during a quick stir fry, but that requires the high heat you only find in restaurant kitchens. For the home kitchen, with the heat not high enough to evaporate all the liquid given off by the squid as it cooks, you end up boiling rather than stir frying the squid. So when making this dish at home, reverse the process by quickly cooking the squid first in a very hot wok, thereby releasing any liquids (which is saved for the sauce), and then adding and stir frying the shrimp sauce with the squid. The results are not quite the same, but close.

1. Heat a wok or pan over high heat before adding oil and then the long beans. Stir fry the long beans to brown them. Add the bowl with the ginger and garlic mixture, and then some oil to the mixture. Quickly stir fry all the ingredients until the ginger and garlic mixture becomes fragrant. Transfer the contents of the wok to a bowl.
2. Reheat the wok over high heat before adding oil. The wok must be very hot before adding the squid to the wok in a single layer on the bottom. The squid should be quickly stir fried to keep them tender, hence the need for a very hot wok. If the squid is cooked too long, the texture becomes tough. You may have to cook the squid in batches, so be sure to reheat the wok over high heat before adding more oil. Remove any liquid from the wok as the result of cooking the squid to the bowl with the long beans. Add the shrimp sauce to the squid in the wok and stir fry.
3. Add the green onions and the contents of the bowl with the long beans back into the wok, and stir fry all the ingredients together. Add the sauce ingredients to the wok and stir fry the ingredients together. Add the corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce and mix all the ingredients together. Put the cooked ingredients into a serving dish and serve with steamed rice.