Stir-Fried Shrimp with Green Peas / Steamed Okra with Dressing

Haven’t cooked in a long time. It’s been a while.

Recently I’ve started trying to handle the whole shopping-and-cooking routine. Picked up shrimp at the supermarket — actually a “green peas and shrimp” combo pack — and also grabbed okra, cherry tomatoes, cabbage, and cucumber. The last three are for a fruit salad.

The weather was nice today, so I made the shrimp and the okra.

The okra is dead simple: chop the garlic, drop it into medium-hot oil, stir it around, take it out. Make a dressing with light soy sauce and a spoonful of sugar. Blanch the okra in boiling water for 1 minute, and after taking it out you can run it under cold water to make it crisper — I didn’t, because I forgot.

Then plate it and pour the dressing over. Done.

Tastes fine. Has a strong whiff of the western frontier about it.

The shrimp needs to be mixed with egg white and cornstarch first. I cut corners here and didn’t mix it evenly. After mixing, let it sit for 10 minutes.

Chop red chili and remove the core — I cut corners here too; it should be fresh red chili, but I used dried red chili.

Two spoonfuls of oil, toss the shrimp for 30 seconds, remove.

Then three spoonfuls of oil, throw in the green peas and red chili and start stir-frying. Add Shaoxing wine partway through, put the shrimp back in and keep stir-frying, finally add salt and plate it.

Because I cut corners with the cornstarch mixing, the egg white didn’t look especially pretty, but the taste was fine.

Both dishes have room for improvement. More practice next time.

Also bought a pack of Japanese curry powder, plus pork (no beef — not halal, so not halal, whatever), potatoes, carrots, onions…

Next time I’m making curry.