Basil Cilantro Lobster Noodles (紫蘇芫茜龍蝦麵, Zi2 Sou1 Jyun4 Sai1 Lung4 Haa1 Min6)

Happy New Year! For the first dish of the New Year, here’s a lobster noodle dish seasoned with basil and cilantro. The normal lobster dish found in restaurants is usually made with a fresh whole lobster (shell included) and you have to remove the meat from the shell in order to eat the dish. The dish is visually stunning with the bright red lobster shell, but a messy pain to eat (at least in my opinion). I would rather not have the visually stunning presentation and use cooked (not fresh) lobster meat removed from the shell. I use kitchen shears to remove the meat from the lobster shells, especially the small legs that contain that hard to get at lobster meat. If a whole lobster is too much of a challenge, you can substitute cooked lobster tails. For this dish, I used basil and cilantro for added flavor in this dish. The traditional lobster noodle recipe just uses lobster, so this variation adds a nice fresh herbal note to the dish.

Enjoy!

Technique: How To Make Shrimp Crunchy

This is probably my last post for 2017. I want to wish you and your family the best for 2018. I hope you’ve enjoyed (and tried) this year’s recipes. As you might have noticed, there have been very few posts since early November. I took a long vacation to Asia for most of November and into early December, so the queue for new recipes is long (and growing larger). I’ve been wanting to start blogging about my travel, so to that end, I made an initial post about frozen turkey prices in Singapore. I expect to start adding more posts in the coming year, so keep an eye out for those posts. The travel blog can be found here: https://ducksoupeasytravel.blogspot.com.

For my last post this year, I decided to post a technique for making shrimp “crunchy”. This technique is really simple and I would urge you to try it so that your shrimp have the same texture as that found in restaurants.

The prawn or shrimp in restaurant dishes always have a crunchiness to them, while shrimp used at home lack texture. This is true for both fresh (which in the USA were previously frozen unless you happen to live a region that truly has fresh shrimp) and frozen shrimp. I’ve been looking for a way to emulate the texture of shrimp found in restaurants, but the methods that I’ve found on the internet involve more steps, ingredients, and work that make the process cumbersome.

I managed to find a way to reliably and simply produce crunchy shrimp, and it involves the use of baking soda. If you’ve read many of my recipes, baking soda is used to tenderize meats like to that found in restaurant dishes. In the case of shrimp, a baking soda solution can be used to give shrimp the crunchy texture like that found in restaurants.

The technique involves soaking the shrimp overnight in an iced baking soda solution and then, one hour before cooking, marinating the shrimp. If the shrimp is frozen, there’s no need to add ice to the solution. The shrimp may be left in the baking soda solution up to 48 hours, so there’s no need to use the shrimp all at once in a single dish. The shrimp should be left in the baking soda solution until one hour before cooking the dish. The crunchiness will disappear from the shrimp, once the shrimp is removed from the baking soda solution. Washing away the baking soda solution from the shrimp under cold water one hour before cooking (and marinating) gives the best results.

Enjoy!

Steamed Tianjin Preserved Vegetable White Bass (蒸天津冬菜鰤鱸魚, Zing1 Tin1 Zeon1 Dung1 Coi3 Lou4 Jyu4)

Tianjin Preserved Vegetable is used to provide the flavoring to this steamed fish dish. The preserved vegetables are very salty, so the amount used depends upon personal preference. I used white bass for the fish, but use any available fish to make this dish.

The fish is always finished with heated oil and a soy sauce mixture. You can use a small pot or a wok to heat the mixtures, but I’ve been using the microwave to heat the soy sauce mixture. As always, you need to be very careful when you pour heated oil and liquids on the fish, as the hot oil and liquid will pop and splatter off the fish.

Enjoy!

Doubanjiang Lemongrass Fish Ball Chicken (辣豆瓣酱檸檬葉魚蛋鷄, Laat6 Dau6 Faan6 Zoeng3 Ning4 Mung4 Jip6 Jyu4 Daan6 Gai1)

Spicy broad bean paste (Doubanjiang) and lemongrass are the basis for the flavor of this chicken and fish ball dish. The Doubanjiang is first stir fried until it darkens in color and then the chicken is added to the mixture. This is the last step after all the other ingredients have been stir fried, which is backwards from the usual order of stir frying the chicken first in most other dishes. The dish can be made even spicier by adding fresh red chili peppers.

Enjoy!

Mesquite Grilled Pork Chops with Skin (燒烤豆科木豬排, Siu1 Haau1 Dau6 Fo1 Gun3 Muk6 Zyu1 Paai4)

This is a variation on a previously posted recipe, Grilled Hickory Smoked Rib Eye Pork Chops, which uses the most basic method to wood smoke (mesquite, in this case) pork rib chops on a grill. For this recipe, pork rib chops with the skin on are used. Skin-on pork rib chops can be purchased at your local Asian market. You need to cut the skin in two to three places so that the pork chops don’t curl up when the skin contracts as it is grilled. There’s no marinating involved – just take the pork rib chops out of the refrigerator one hour before grilling, coat with sesame oil, salt or Lawry’s seasoned salt, and pepper, and then grill. The flavor is also at its most basic – just pork and wood smoke.

Enjoy!

Panang Curry Paste Cauliflower Fish Ball Chicken Stir Fry (燉咖哩醬椰菜花魚蛋炒鷄, Dan6 Gaa3 Lei1 Zoeng3 Je4 Coi3 Faa1 Jyu4 Daan6 Caau2 Gai1)

This dish uses Panang curry paste as the basis for the flavoring for this dish in a similar manner as Doubanjiang (spicy broad bean paste). The technique to make these dishes is to first stir fry the Doubanjiang and then add the meat, stir frying the combination together to combine the flavors. The same technique is used to make this curry dish, using a (small) can of Panang curry paste. This technique actually works since when making a dish using curry paste, the curry paste is first stir fried to bring out the flavors before adding the next ingredients. In addition to the chicken used in this dish, I used prepared fish balls that were available at my local Asian market, which is a classic combination of flavors.

Enjoy!

Mesquite Grilled Two Pepper Chicken Wings (燒烤豆科灌木兩椒鷄翼, Siu1 Haau1 Dau6 Fo1 Gun3 Muk6 Loeng5 Ziu1 Gai1 Jik6)

This is a very simple grilled chicken wing dish that can be made after marinating chicken wings overnight. After marinating, all you need to do is to grind whole black and white peppercorns (or use already ground) and coat the wings (adding salt to the mixture is optional). Mesquite wood is added to the grill, but you can use oak, hickory, pecan, or whatever your favorite wood is, to further enhances the flavor. You can choose to remove the wing tips before marinating, but I leave them on since I don’t mind eating them. The wings are smoked covered over indirect heat.

Enjoy!