In the 1970's I would eat lunch at Chinese restaurants in Wilmington, DE, with my great Chinese friend, Dora Clark. I enjoyed various pork and shrimp dishes, but among them I had a favorite that was batter dipped fried butterflied shrimp with bacon served with a light, sweet barbecue sauce over white rice. The Chinese name for that dish on the menu was Wor Dip Har.
Internet recipes I found years later for Wor Dip Har did not batter dip, but simply fried and served the dish over rice with a light barbecue sauce.
The recipe below is one that I found on the Internet and modified considerably to create Wor Dip Har as I remembered it. I was pleased with the initial results but I continued to refine the recipe. I found that any frozen shrimp you may buy will not lend itself to being butterflied as the backs are cleaned before you buy them. Thus, I formed kabobs of shrimp and bacon temporarily until I could buy the right type of shrimp ... large, fresh and still in the shell.
The best way to make this dish is to buy fresh raw shrimp in the shell, of size 16 to 20 to the pound, and then shell them (except for the final tail section), butterfly them and then clean out the dark vein.
Ingredients: (makes two servings)
3 tbsp. of fresh lemon juice
12 Extra large shrimp, shelled, butterflied and cleaned
2 slices of dry cured hickory smoked bacon, each slice partially fried and then cut into six pieces, crosswise
2 to 3 cups of cooked basmati or jasmine rice
12 round 2 1/2" long toothpicks
1 cup of light sweet barbecue sauce
1 quart of peanut oil for frying
An instant read thermometer
Directions:
Steam 1 cup of uncooked basmati or jasmine rice per package instructions. Let the rice rest in the covered saucepan until you are ready to make plates of Wor Dip Har for your guests, then lightly warm individual servings of rice on plates in the microwave oven..
Soak the shelled shrimp in a bowl in the lemon juice for five minutes. Stir to mix and coat the shrimp as necessary. Then drain the juice from the shrimp on a paper towel. Then butterfly each shrimp.
Pre-fry the bacon only until it starts to become crisp, then remove it from the skillet and put it on a paper towel to drain off hot bacon fat. Then cut each piece of bacon into six pieces, crosswise.
Use a toothpick to attach a piece of partially fried bacon to a raw butterflied shrimp. Do that for all the pieces of bacon and shrimp.
Transfer the partially fried bacon and raw shrimp pieces to a paper towel covered baking sheet.
Go to the Chinese Fried Shrimp Batter Recipe below to create the batter and to flour coat the shrimp and bacon pieces.
Heat one quart of peanut oil in a wok on medium high heat to 325 degrees F.
Check the thickness of the batter. You may want to thin it with a small amount of water and whisk it so that it coats the shrimp and bacon pieces with only a thin layer of batter.
Lightly batter dip six of the floured pieces of shrimp and bacon individually and put each one into the hot oil. Fry the shrimp in batches of six, at 325 degrees F, just long enough to cook the shrimp, finish frying the bacon and to fry the batter until it is crisp and lightly tan. Turn each piece of shrimp over once during frying. Two to three minutes per side is about the right amount of frying time.
Put the batter dipped fried shrimp and bacon on a paper towel covered plate, and keep the plate in a 200 degrees F warming oven.
Repeat the above frying steps for the remainder of the floured and battered bacon wrapped shrimp, putting a paper towel between layers of the Wor Dip Har on the plate in the oven.
Serve the Wor Dip Har hot with a light, warmed BBQ sauce, over the basmati or jasmine rice. Remember to remove the toothpick before eating each piece of fried shrimp and bacon.
You can use Ray's light BBQ dipping sauce recipe shown below or find a different sauce recipe via the Internet or buy a sauce at your supermarket.
Chinese Fried Shrimp Batter Recipe
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of flour for the batter
1 extra large egg
1 tsp. of baking powder
1/2 tsp. of sea salt
1/2 tsp. of garlic powder
pinch of white pepper
1/3 cup of water (plus more later to thin the chilled batter)
1/2 cup of flour for coating the shrimp
Directions:
Whisk the egg in a large bowl. Add the 1/2 cup of flour and the baking powder, salt, garlic powder, white pepper and water.
Whisk the ingredients together until they are combined. Let the batter rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Put 1/2 cup of flour into a quart size Ziploc® freezer bag. Coat all of the shrimp and bacon pieces by putting six at a time into the Ziploc® freezer bag, closing the bag, and shaking it for about ten seconds to get flour all over the surface of each piece.
Now return to the Wor Dip Har recipe to batter coat and fry the floured bacon and shrimp.
Ray's Light Barbecue Dipping Sauce: (makes two cups)
1 1/2 cups of Duck Sauce (Buy it in quart jars in any Asian market or in your supermarket.)
1 tsp. of dark Soy Sauce
2 tbsp. of rice vinegar
1 tbsp. of honey
2 tbsp. of Shaoxing wine
1/4 cup of Maraschino cherry juice
Directions:
Mix all the sauce ingredients together well, warm the sauce in the microwave oven, and serve the sauce in a serving bowl with a ladle so your guests can each decide how much to use.
I hope you make and enjoy this recipe, for it is quite tasty and unique.