Shrimp with lobster sauce is a tasty Chinese dish that is easy to make. As I didn't have a recipe in Food Nirvana for shrimp with lobster sauce (there is no lobster in lobster sauce) I decided to find a great one and include it. Thanks goes to the Woks Of Life® folks.
As usual, I like to tweak recipe ingredients to produce what I like best, like in this instance the size and weight of the shrimp. You are free to do whatever you want with any recipe ingredients to accommodate your preferences. You will see snow peas and scallops in the picture because I decided to add them to the recipe, giving it more delightful complexity. I also make modifications to the directions where needed to reflect differences in equipment or other determinants like the amount of available heat for cooking in a wok, any number of which may happen because our kitchens are not identical.
A light white wine like Pinot Grigio, chilled, is a nice beverage to serve with this meal. Or, you can choose most any cold beverage.
Ingredients: (2 to 3 servings)
12 oz. of fresh (or frozen) shrimp (16 to 20 size)
4 oz. of ground pork
12 oz. of sea scallops, halved (optional addition)
2 tablespoons of canola oil
1 medium clove of garlic (minced)
1 tablespoon of Shaoxing wine
1 1/2 to 2 cups of chicken broth (increase this to 3 cups if you are adding the optional ingredients)
1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of white pepper
1/2 cup of frozen peas (thawed)
1 cup of snow peas, membrane removed (optional addition)
2 to 3 tablespoons of cornstarch (mixed into a slurry with 1/3 cup of water)
1 extra large egg (beaten slightly)
1 scallion (cut thinly crosswise, both white and green parts)
1 cup of uncooked basmati or jasmine rice
1 3/4 to 2 cups of water for steaming the rice
Directions:
Prepare one cup of uncooked jasmine rice by steaming it in 1 3/4 cups of boiling water. Alternately, you can choose to make basmati rice using 2 cups of boiling water. Once the rice is mixed into the boiling water, steam it covered with a lid at a very low simmer for 15 minutes, then remove it from the heat and let it rest, covered, for five minutes. Then fluff the rice with two forks.
Put the rice into a one quart bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it into a 180 degrees F warming oven. Put the individual serving dishes you plan to use into the warming oven.
Peel and devein the shrimp.
Boil 2 cups of water in a large wok on high heat and stir in the ground pork.
Break up any clumps and cook for about 1 minute, until the pork is no longer pink.
Drain the pork in a mesh strainer and give it a quick hot water rinse.
Clean the wok and put it over medium high heat.
When it is hot, add the canola oil, then the garlic, ground pork, and shrimp and (optional) scallops, and stir fry for 30 seconds.
Add the wine and stir fry for another 10 to 20 seconds.
Add the chicken broth, sesame oil, sugar, salt, and white pepper. Stir in the peas and (optional) snow peas and heat the mixture.
Once the mixture comes to a simmer, reduce the heat to medium and stir in the cornstarch slurry a little bit at a time.
Let the mixture bubble at a low boil and thicken. It should be able to coat a spoon, but it shouldn’t be thick.
If it is too thick, add a little more chicken broth and stir. If it is too thin, stir in more cornstarch slurry.
Spread the slightly beaten egg and scallion pieces across the top of the wok contents and let the mixture simmer for 10 seconds.
Use a spatula to fold the egg into the sauce.
Serve the shrimp with lobster sauce over bowls of the rice. Season to taste with salt or white pepper.
Enjoy!