Ken Hom

Spicy Shrimp with Wine Rice

Preparation info

  • Difficulty

    Medium

  • Serves

    4

    as a Main Course.

Appears in

top 1000Chinese Technique

Chinese Technique

By Ken Hom

Published 1981

This is one of the most delicious ways of using fermented wine rice. The combination of wine rice with minced garlic and ginger, and the richness of the pork, makes this a perfect example of a Sichuan dish. Its unique taste is quite unexpected. The shells are left on the shrimp because they add flavor and hold the sauce. The key to this dish is to warm the wine rice barely and not to overcook it, making it too mushy. The unshelled shrimp are deep-fried so that their shells split open, both cooking them and making them attractive.

Much of the preliminary mincing and chopping can be done ahead of time and the dish put together at the last minute.

Ingredients

  • ½ pound pork, ground

Marinade

  • 1½ tablespoons Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
  • 1 tablespoon thin soy sauce
  • 1 pound large; unshelled shrimp, cleaned and prepared
  • 2 cups peanut oil for deep-frying
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root
  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 6 dried hot red peppers

Sauce

  • 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 tablespoons chili paste
  • ½ cup chicken broth
  • ½ cups Fermented Wine Rice
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Garnish

  • ½ cup minced scallion

Method

  • Deep-frying, Stir-frying
  • Individual ingredients may be prepared in advance, and the dish assembled and stir-fried just before serving.
  • Marinate the pork for 15 minutes or more.

  1. Deep-fry the unshelled shrimp in hot oil until they turn opaque (about 1 minute). (Alternatively, they may be stir-fried in 3 tablespoons oil for the same length of time.) Remove the shrimp, drain them, and set them aside. Drain the oil except for 2 tablespoons, or drain it completely and add 2 tablespoons fresh oil. (The oil may be cooled, strained, stored, and reused later to deep-fry other seafood dishes.)

  2. Flavor the oil with ginger, garlic, and hot peppers.

  3. Add the marinated ground pork and stir-fry until it loses its raw appearance.

  4. Add the sauce ingredients and the wine rice. Stir the mixture thoroughly as it boils for a few seconds.

  5. Stir in the shrimp to heat them through. Add the sesame oil.

  6. This dish can be served garnished with minced scallion or with boiled or fried crayfish.

© 1981 Ken Hom. All rights reserved.