This is a pretty simple stir fry with fairly easy to find ingredients. The most complicated step is "velveting" the scallops in advance of preparing the dish. Velveting results in moist, succulent proteins. It is accomplished by a brief marinade in egg whites, corn starch, and some liquid, in this case rice wine. With this recipe, the scallops are also simmered for a few seconds in water and a bit of oil to partially cook them.
Usually my kitchen looks like a hurricane hit it after I've prepared a stir fry, but with this dish, I had a chance to clean up a bit while the scallops were marinating.
The thing about stir frying is, that once you get started, it goes by FAST! For example, "add the ginger and garlic.. stir fry 10 seconds..." I think this stir fry took about 2 minutes. It's all in the prep and mise en place.
We had a discussion on the Wok Wednesdays Facebook page about this and everybody had some great hints, including doing all of the prep work in advance and storing it in little bowls in the refrigerator earlier in the day. I like to break down the steps in the recipe into micro steps and write them out individually in large print so that I can see exactly what I have to do next without finding my place in the book.
This scallop dish is so rich and luxurious tasting. It also includes carrots, scallions, some crushed red pepper, along with the usual cast of characters (soy sauce, rice wine, rice vinegar, ginger, and garlic). Perfect for Chinese New Year.
It also calls for the zest of a whole orange, but I used the zest of a tangelo because I have so many ripe ones on the tree in our backyard. It worked beautifully.
This recipe is on page 157 of Grace Young's Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge. If you are interested in making some of the best Chinese food that you will every taste, get this book.
Now about the mess in my kitchen....
This dish looks so much better when directions are followed! Looks wonderful Karen.
ReplyDeleteYours looks just fine!
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