Shrimp Egg Fried Cabbage-Rice (take 2)

I posted about egg fried cabbage-rice some months ago, and since then I have revised (and improved) my technique and recipe. I literally make this every week - if not for breakfast, then for dinner. My favorite is to throw some shrimp in, which is really easy b/c I just keep a resealable bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer, and voila. Tasty, comforting, and fast. My wok has never gotten so much love!

*I have some gochujang paste in the fridge that I've been using in this dish. You don't need it, or you could use whatever chili paste you have, or use hot peppers plus a little fish sauce. It adds a nice umami kick. Sometimes I also add in some chopped kimchi.

I've experimented with the order I add things to the wok, and my favorite is to do the eggs early. When starting with the eggs, they stick together without just coating everything else, and they stick to the pan less than when I add them at the end. So my preferred method follows, but you really can't go wrong.

Serves 1:

• 2-3 T sesame oil
• 1 rib celery, diced
• 1/4 large onion, diced
• 2 eggs
• 1 small carrot, diced
• 1-2 cups cabbage, chopped small
  
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2"+ of ginger, minced
• 4-6 shrimp, de-veined and tails removed, diced 
• 1-2 T tamari
• opt: minced chili pepper and dash of fish sauce OR 1-2 tsp gochujang paste
• salt to taste
• opt: garnish with sliced scallions

Have all of your veggies/shrimp prepped!

Heat oil in a wok on high heat. Add onion and celery and stir fry for a minute. Push them to the side, and crack two eggs into the wok, ideally there should still be a fair amount of oil for the eggs to crack into. Stir up the eggs so they scramble and cook, mixing with onions/celery.

Add carrot, cabbage, ginger and garlic. Stir and toss for a few minutes. Add shrimp. Cook until pink, 1-2 minutes. Add tamari and gochujang - stir and toss to coat everything. Tip into a large bowl and eat!

Wood stove Grilled Shrimp and Cabbage

I am loving cooking on my wood stove lately, especially while I am working and cannot be tending to cooking. Setting pots on top of it is my favorite! Recently I "grilled" (atop the coals in said stove) some shrimp and cabbage, which went quickly, resulting in a very tasty dinner of shrimp, cabbage, and rice. I made this previously with sweet potatoes instead of rice, which was also delicious.

The shrimp can handle a quick marinade, taking on the flavor in minutes. This combo of citrus, ginger, turmeric and garlic is easy and delicious. I used my extra sauce on rice and veggies throughout the week, which felt like a treat. The recipe below is enough for 2, with a little extra sauce. This Bon Appetit recipe (that I've made twice now) is my first time grilling shrimp, which is SO easy: 1 minute per side, and the cabbage was about 4 minutes per side. This is a really quick dinner if the coals are already ready.

Marinade/Sauce

• 3 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 habanero chiles, seeds removed, chopped (I used fermented minced jalapenos)
  
• 1 2" piece ginger, peeled, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 1 tsp sweetener (opt)
  
• 1 tsp. unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1/4 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for grill
• Kosher salt
• 3/4 lb. large shrimp, peeled, de-veined

Directions:

Prepare a grill for medium-high heat. Pulse garlic, chiles, ginger, lime juice, orange juice, sugar, vinegar, and turmeric in a food processor until combined and almost smooth. With the motor running, gradually stream in ⅓ cup oil and process until emulsified.

Pour half of the sauce into a small bowl; season with kosher salt. Set aside for serving. Transfer remaining sauce to a medium bowl and add shrimp. Season with kosher salt and toss to coat.

Clean and oil grate, then immediately arrange shrimp on grill. Grill until bright pink and lightly charred, about 1 minute per side. Divide shrimp among bowls. Spoon reserved sauce over; sprinkle with sea salt. Serve with rice or veggies as desired.

(For grilled cabbage, cut 1" slabs from a full cabbage head and brush each side with olive oil. Grill for 4 minutes/side, flipping carefully. (You may need to insert toothpicks to hold cabbage together, depending on cabbage slab!)

Wonton meatballs

I made Nom Nom Paleo's wonton meatballs in a double batch tonight. I made a similar dish some years ago in the style of sui mai dumplings, which was a similar recipe steamed in zucchini "cups." This time I just followed Michelle Tam's recipe and made meatballs. Delicious. I made a double batch b/c I bought a 1lb frozen shrimp package when it was on sale, and just froze some of it to make again later.

At the time of this meatball consumption, I am in the midst of an obsession with Christine and the Queens. This song is the current one on repeat. OMG. I am in love with her. Other videos showcase her moves, which inspire me to dance in the kitchen and get all swoon-ish at the same time.

Wonton Meatballs (by Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo)
¼ ounce dried shiitake mushrooms soaked in water for at least 30 minutes
½ pound shrimp peeled and deveined
1 pound ground pork 
2 scallions finely chopped
¼ cup cilantro minced
1 tablespoon coconut aminos
½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
½ teaspoon fish sauce
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
¼ teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1) Hydrate your dried mushrooms - mine take 30 minutes in warm water. 

2) Preheat the oven to 400°F, and squeeze the water out of the shiitake mushrooms. Cut off the hard stems, and finely mince them.

3) Finely chop the shrimp until you’ve got a chunky paste.

4) Place the shrimp in a large bowl and add the pork, mushrooms, scallions, cilantro, coconut aminos, salt, fish sauce, white pepper, and sesame oil.

5) Use your hands to squeeze and mix the meatball mixture until a sticky and tacky mass is formed.

6) Heat up a small frying pan over medium heat and add a little cooking fat. When the pan is hot, form a little patty and cook it in the pan. Taste it and see if the seasoning is right. Adjust with additional salt if needed. (Not cooking yet? You can store the meatball mixture in the fridge for up to 12 hours.)

7) Form the mixture into 1½-inch balls. Roll the mixture into round balls and arrange on a baking sheet. You should end up with about a dozen balls.

8) Bake the meatballs in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through. I finished mine off under the broiler to get a good sear. 
This time I ate these with roasted broccoli and eggplant and some sriracha. I've also used them in noodle soup with tasty results.

Chinese Dumplings (Sui Mai) Paleo-style

I'm pretty picky about what blogs I follow...I want them to be paleo, I want them to feature mostly food for meals (not desserts), and I don't really like when there is lots of promotional material. I also like when they feature foods from various cultural cuisines. Really, I have only a few staples that I check out regularly (i'm on the hunt for more). Studio Snacks is my recent find - I've mentioned the blog before, but this is my first mostly-true-to-recipe post. She seems to be on a quest to create some paleo dim sum options, this one being Sui Mai (stuffed zucchini). I haven't ever had dim sum, which will be my fate unless a gluten free dim sum place appears. But really, I found these delicious, so who needs it?!

I actually think I can do some more playing around with them. I made these twice - both times using zucchini instead of yellow squash because, well, the zucchini just keep growing. The first time I steamed the dumplings as directed, but found they were too watery for my taste. The second time I baked them in the oven, but then the meat texture wasn't as nice. I am not sure if this is a) due to baking, b) because I used a spoon to mix the pork/shrimp mixture and not my hands (maybe the fat from the pork didn't set well enough with the rest of the ingredients?), c) because I let the meat mixture sit out longer before stuffing the zucchini, or d) because the zucchini were larger and maybe too big, hence needing a longer cooking time and possibly over-cooking them.

Ultimately either cooking method worked, but the steaming meant watery dumplings, and the baking version had meat was a bit soft. Take 2 also included a trial of stuffing the meat mixture into mushrooms, but I didn't find that as tasty. The mushrooms were too strongly flavored, whereas the zucchini is more neutral. My Charming Companion (who was really excited about these because, unlike me, he has a long history of dim sum eating and was missing dumplings) also suggested trying to wrap these in steamed cabbage leaves, which I find intriguing and want to try.

Anyway - you can also just make this meat mixture, fry it up in mini patties, and eat dipped in some sauce. I did that with part of batch one and it was delicious.The meat gets a nice sear on it that way too!

Stuffed Zucchini "Dumplings"
3-4 medium zucchini
1/2 pound ground pork
5 large shrimp
6 shiitake mushrooms
1/2 inch of ginger
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon roasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
1/4 teaspoon 5-spice powder (optional)

1. Shell/devein the shrimp; mince it, along with ginger and muchrooms. Mix together with the pork.
2. Add remaining ingredients and mix into pork mixture. Use your hands (just in case this contributed to better meat texture) to really blend the flavors. Put mixture in fridge while you prep the zucchini.
3. Cut zucchini into 1/2" thick slices. Using a spoon, score around each slice in a circle, then dig into the circle and scoop out the center. Imagine you are using a melon ball scoop - but it's a spoon.
4. Fill each ball with meat mixture (it will be super sticky - wetting your hands will help). If you are steaming, start the water boiling in your steamer; to bake, heat oven to 350. To steam: put sui mai into steamer and steam for 15 minutes, or until pork is cooked. To bake: bake for 15-20 minutes until pork is done.

5. Serve with dipping sauce below!

I first used a simple coconut aminos/fish sauce/sriracha to dip these in, but My Charming Companion was not having that. The recipe he devised is a bit more traditional, and was delicious.

Dipping Sauce
2 T coconut aminos
2 T rice wine vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
sprinkle of sesame seeds
splash of sesame oil

Shrimp cocktail

It's March! Spring is not so far away! The 6 foot high snow banks can only last for so much longer. I am optimistic.

I don't know what inspired my having shrimp cocktail this weekend. I think it was that My Charming Companion and I were craving pizza, and wanted to have that with some sort of protein appetizer. So I got some shrimp. But then the evening came and the pizza was too high maintenance (we were going to try a cauliflower crust one), so we made soup instead and had that with the shrimp. (Pizza was on Sunday, but with a coconut flour crust - post forthcoming.)

I don't often crave shrimp, or shrimp cocktail for that matter - but this was sort of a festive diversion from anything I have been eating lately. And, I LOVE horseradish and when do I eat an appetizer for my own dinner? Not so often. Also, you can make your own fish broth with the leftover shrimp shells. Just put the shells in a pot, add some onion/celery scraps, cover with water and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Cocktail Sauce
2 T tomato paste
2 T prepared horseradish*
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp mustard
salt to taste
*I used Bubbies horseradish, which has some sugar in there and is not super hot - you may want to use less if your brand is hotter

Mix all ingredients together - and that's it. You are done. So easy.

Roasted Shrimp
1 lb shrimp, shelled and de-veined
Olive oil
salt and pepper
lemon juice

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss shrimp in olive oil, salt and pepper to lightly coat. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 5-12 minutes, flipping once in the middle until cooked through (mine were medium sized shrimp and I went 10 minutes). Chill (I stuck the pan on the frigid porch for about 5 minutes and that worked great - 0 degrees is good for flash-chilling!). Sprinkle with lemon juice or serve with lemon wedges, and dip in cocktail sauce.

Scallops and Shrimp with Pea Puree

Happy 2014! The new year seems a good reason to celebrate and perhaps splurge on seafood. This is the season for scallops, so they say. Last year I pretty much exclusively ate scallops wrapped in bacon, but because I seem to have given up the bacon in favor of the (more) luxurious pork belly, I got to experiment with searing the scallops instead. There is some technique to searing: you want a high heat and a fairly dry scallop. Mine went just fine with no fussing on my part, but perhaps it was beginners luck...?

This recipe is from Bon Appetit, and rather than use their pea puree recipe, which included parmesan cheese and a little butter, I used my previosly posted pea puree recipe. Mine (which is really Nigel Slater's) uses more mint and only butter (no cheese) - though I used ghee with positive results. I love this pea puree!

This dinner goes really fast: the peas cook in about 8 minutes and then only need to be pureed, and the seafood cooks in 5. Woah. Your only prep is to devein and peel the shrimp. I had not done this before, at least not the deveining. You need to just barely cut into the top of the shrimp "back" - there you will find one long thin line of a dark colored vein that you can just pull out. Here is a nice photo lesson in how to do the deveining (and peeling) process.

If you are really an expert, you could time the peas to finish cooking right after the seafood goes in the pan so that you can then puree them to keep optimum heat in the peas. I recruited My Charming Companion to watch over the seafood while I pureed so as not to mess up the searing. It was too much excitement for just me. But you could also make the pea puree early and keep it warm in the oven. Note that the recipe calls for grated lemon peel. I was without my fancy lemon grater, so chopped it up small for a not-quite-as-picturesque look.

Seared Shrimp and Scallops (by Bon Appetit, who says this serves 4, but come on people. 2 of us ate this very easily. It's seafood?!)
1 T olive oil
8 large sea scallops
8 large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tsp finely grated lemon peel
1 T small fresh mint leaves (opt garnish)
Extra virgin olive oil (for drizzling)
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in heavy large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle shrimp and scallops with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook shrimp and scallops until golden brown outside and just opaque in center, about 2-3 minutes per side.Don't fuss with them and jsut let them sit still so as to nicely sear. Use a nice flat spatula to get under them, working "assuredly" so as to unstick each scallop in a nice swoop. The timid will lose the sear - so be courageous!

Plate your pea puree on two (warmed) plates. Set scallops and shrimp atop peas. Sprinkle with lemon peel, mint leaves, a little salt and pepper, and drizzle olive oil over the top of each plate. Serve!