Stir fried Udon noddles and shrimp

8 October 2009 in Cooking

First find good fresh ingredients, I used:

1 – head of Nappa cabbage (wanted bok choy, but it was not available)

10 – 10-15 count shrimp, from fish monger.

2 – portions of Udon noodles dried (much better than the refrifgerated)

1 – lime

1 – small finger of ginger

1 – bunch of green onions

Cleaning the shrimp was the first order of business, since I needed the shells for my stock. My stock pot was next to me, so I could toss the shells directly into the pot while I cleaned the shrimp. Once cleaned, I added the juice of half a lime to the shrimp, along with salt, pepper, crushed garlic, and a few coins of ginger. Typically there would be a spicy component to the marinade, but I am happiest when I do as my wife wishes, so no spicy ingredients.

For the stock, I added the ends of the green onions, the lime half used for the marinade, ginger, and garlic. Typically I would have just added enough water to cover the shells, but I knew more liquid was needed to boil the Udon. So I filled my pot to the bottom of the rivets (roughly double the liquid, if I was only making stock). Bring the pot to a boil then let it simmer for 25 minutes or so.

This is a perfect time to prep the veggies. Slice the green onions, chop the nappa cabbage (I pulled off the outer leaves, then chopped from the top towards the center, to get long pieces similar to shredded cabbage). The funny thing is, I intended to add some finely chopped garlic, but forgot. So prep some garlic too.

Once the stock is ready, drop your udon noodles in (mine took 5-6 minutes). After the udon are in for a couple minutes, get a saute pan nice and hot. Once the pan it near smoking add 1 tbs of sesame oil and enough peanut oil to just coat the bottom of the pan. Put your shrimp in the pan (the number of shrimp (10) I used was not enough to overcrowd my pan, but be careful not to add so many at once it cools the pan down). My shrimp took about 1 1/2 minutes per side. When they have a nice crust and are nearly cooked through, remove them from the pan. This will protect your shrimp, from turning to rubber from carry over cooking. Add the garlic (if you remembered, better than I did), move it around a little, then add the onion and cabbage. Toss the vegetables until they wilt , transfer your udon noddles to the saute pan (I used tongs and attempted to drain them. A little of the stock in the pan adds flavor, a lot turns your stir-fry into soup). Leave the noodles alone for a minute to caramelize a bit, this way when you toss them/stir the noodles, you do not break them up. At this point add the ingredients for your sauce. I cheated with House of Tsang Korean Teriyaki Stir Fry Sauce and a touch of Kim Lan dark soy sauce. Toss to coat with sauce, then plate and eat!

P.S.

For those of you observant enough to have noticed the spring roll wrappers, I made spring roll/crab rangoons with the left over crab ravioli filling, from my last post. My Asian market did not have the thicker egg roll wrappers, that I prefer for rangoons. So, I thought I would try spring roll wrappers. This did not work out well lol.