Shrimp with Lobster Sauce

This recipe from Joyce Chen doesn’t actually contain any lobster: it’s just that the sauce is the same one that she served with lobster.  She called this an Americanized Chinese dish.

But it is quite simple to make, and you can have it on the table as soon as the rice is ready. This recipe calls for ground pork. Often you can find it in the supermarket, but if not, you can chop up some pork in a food processor or by hand using a large knife. For black beans, ideally you should use fermented Chinese black beans but we used Goya black beans with sea salt as a substitute.

• 1 lb raw shrimp
• ½ cup ground pork
• 2 tsp dry sherry
• 2 Tb cornstarch
• 4 Tb cooking oil
• 2 slices ginger root, minced
• 1 ½ Tb black beans, minced
• 2 cloved garlic crushed and minced
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 Tb soy sauce
• ¼ tsp MSG
• ¼ tsp sugar
• 1 egg, beaten

1. Rinse and shell the shrimp and remove the intestinal vein. In these pictures, we used Vietnamese red shrimp, which are not yet cooked, but come already peeled and deveind.
2. Mix the shrimp with the sherry and ½ Tb cornstarch.
3. Mix the remaining cornstarch into ¼ cup of water.
4. Heat the oil in a skillet or wok to high heat and add the shrimp. Cook and stir for about 2 minutes and remove from the pan, and keep warm. Keep as much oil as possible.

1. Reheat the oil and add the ginger root, garlic and black beans.

1. After stirring for about 30 seconds, add the pork, salt, soy sauce, MSG, sugar and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 2 minutes.
2. Mix in the shrimp and the stirred cornstarch mixture, after heating, stir in the beaten egg.

1. Serve immediately over rice.

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