Posted by Patrick.C
It is an exhausted week. We are packing and going to move into the new apartment this coming weekend (as Bel mentioned before in her post). I am totally not enjoying the moving process though. I don’t really have much time for cooking. Therefore I just wanted to cook something easy and delicious for dinner. Flipping over an old cookbook from Malaysia and I found this scrumptious recipe – steamed shrimp with minced garlic.
I couldn’t remember whether I had this dish in Malaysia before or not, but definitely this was the first time I cooked it. It turned out so good especially the garlic gravy from this delicate dish was so appetizing enough to make me had 2 bowls of steamed white rice. It is recommended to use fresh shrimps with heads for better taste and presentation or else you can be as lazy as me.
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Posted by Bel.C
Our Chinese New Year recipe continues with today’s special ingredient, prawn or shrimp. I came upon this prawn recipe from a Chinese cookbook in the bookstore a couple weeks ago (forgot the name), I thought it is easy yet meaningful that best suits this festive event. The name of the dish is called 如意蝦 , ru yi xia in Chinese, which literally means ones’ wish or dream will be fulfilled, a symbol of good luck. You can name it Good Luck Prawn or Wine-Seasoned Prawn (or Shrimp) with pandan leaves. I have substitute the recipe with 8 large tails of shrimps, that make up the lucky number 8 because it has the similar pronunciation for richness, fa (發) in Chinese. I hope this dish will bring good luck and many wonders to everyone.
This dish is really simple to be prepared, the main thing is to prepare the special wine with rice wine (上等白米酒) and rose wine (玫瑰露酒) or any wine preferred for taste and seasoning. These fresh shrimps are so good when they have adsorbed the aroma of the wine. Plus, they are wrapped in pandan (screwpine) leaves which give them an extra pandan fragrant. When the shrimps are cooked, you can see the vibrant color of reddish orange of the shrimps with a touch of shiny gloss surface, wrapped up in green color pandan leaves. I absolutely love the presentation that would definitely make the dinner more interesting.
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Posted by Patrick.C
It has been raining cats and dogs since Monday until today and it will be raining tomorrow as well. Thank God for bringing us the rains due to the water crisis in California but sadly, the rain is way too much than what we long for and it flooded some areas in SoCal.
The indolent weather caused me so lazy and inconvenient to drop by the grocery store to pick up some meats after work. Thus my only meat choice to cook for tonight dinner was a pack of shrimps in the fridge. When I thought of peeling and deveining the shrimp, I felt so headache! Anyway, I had no choice but just dealt with the process. I’ve prepared the shrimps with scallion and ginger this time. Easy and delicious!
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Posted by Eric.N
One of my favor party starters is Chinese egg roll. It is made by wrapping a combination of vegetables and meat in a sheet of dough, and then it is deep fried until golden brown. I love eating it since I was a kiddo. Well, I suppose everyone especially kids like the crispy food. I still remember my family always prepared this dish during the Chinese New Year. My sisters and I would help my mom to wrap the egg rolls, and then my mom would deep fry them. Believe it or not, I could finish up 20 egg rolls continuously in less than 10 minutes.
Since my home isn’t equipped with a fryer, it took me quite sometimes to deep fry all the rolls. For those with a fryer at home, you have advantage of doing this. Anyway, if you never try this recipe before, I personally recommend you to at least try making it once at home even you don’t have the fryer. Trust me, you will enjoy toward the last bite of the last roll!
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Posted by Patrick.C
Not sure how many of you love shrimps but I am certainly a devotee of shrimps. I was raised in a family where my mom used to prepare at least a dish of seafood for the dinner daily and shrimp was always my favorite. I love the ways my mom cooked it especially with ketchup.
In Malaysia, the word prawn is more general than shrimp because Malaysia is one of the Commonwealth nations follows the British usage. Shrimp is a kind of shellfish and thus it comes with high calcium, iodine and protein, as well as lofty cholesterol. So I try not taking it too much to prevent myself from high cholesterol.
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