Shrimp and Broccoli in Garlic Sauce and Fried Rice

What do you do when your favorite Chinese Restaurant changes owners and the food becomes substandard? Well it happened to me, and I love my made-for-American-Chinese-food (I'm from Brooklyn for God's sake!). Now that the lady that used to be there with the cute kid who always invited us to return is gone, I have been highly disappointed with the local Chinese restaurant where I live. The food is old, the shrimp are translucent, and the fried rice is not fresh and every grain for itself like the last owner did it. It's like if you go to a soul food restaurant, and the macaroni and cheese is Velveeta shells and cheese or something. The last owner seemed like she was from NYC. I really miss her, but I can't take any more chances...so, I recreated my favorite dish as my father used to do when we were kids. He loves Asian cuisine and so does the rest of my family. My father always said that we were eating American food because Chinese people didn't believe that we would like their traditional food, so they cooked dishes that we would buy. He prefers "real" Chinese food, and I like some of it too, but I really love the stuff that they created just for Americans (if that's really the case). I wouldn't try to sell it, but it is enough to satisfy your craving, if you have a few packets of duck sauce and soy sauce for the rice.

So, check out my Shrimp and Broccoli recipe (I actually did the research):

 

Ingredients:

 

1-2 heads of fresh broccoli

1/2 of a knob -1 knob of garlic

1/2 onion (whatever kind you have)

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornstarch or flour

1 cup water

sesame/olive oil

fresh shrimp (peeled and deveined)

carrot  (optional)

Sliced Ginger (peeled with potato peeler or diced)

crushed red pepper or scotch bonnet pepper (optional)

(for the feel of real fried rice add scrambled eggs, bean sprouts, peas, carrots, but I always order fried rice no vegetables).

 

Jasmine rice or Uncle Ben's

Five spice powder (optional)

 

peel and devein shrimp and rinse in cool water

 

dice onion and garlic

 

cut broccoli stalks at the tip and then cut without damaging heads too much

 

Before you get started make sure that your oil is hot because you're going to stir fry stuff quickly and remove it based on brightness of color.

 

 take a table spoon or so of oil and fry onions and garlic in the pan until onions become translucent (after oil becomes very hot add onions and garlic and fry on medium).

Add shrimp and a table spoon more of oil and soy sauce and sauté until shrimp are bright pink, but remove right away and set aside.

Add broccoli 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and sauté until bright green, remove broccoli immediately and set aside. Add oil as needed, but not too much. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn, you can add 1/2 the garlic in the beginning and the other 1/2 at this point, if you'd like.

There should be liquid in the pan from water released within the broccoli and the shrimp...make sure you don't remove this with the shrimp or the broccoli when you remove them from the pan.


Take the corn starch or flour and add small drops of water (like a teaspoon at a time and mix up a slurry of the starch/flour). Slowly add more water to this (to reach about 1/2 -1 cup), and make sure you're whipping it with a fork or you can beat it with an electric appliance. You just want to make sure that there are no lumps because you don't want a lumpy sauce. Chinese people like cornstarch according to Google China using Google translate.

 Add this to the pan and 1 more table spoon of soy sauce (I think that's the 3rd and last one). and stir it up with a fork. Add the ginger and let this simmer down and thicken before you add the shrimp and then the broccoli (add last to avoid over cooking). Taste the sauce and salt and pepper to taste, but remember that soy sauce is salty, and you should have seasoned your shrimp with salt and pepper ahead of time.
                     
                                                                      


Rice:

Boiling Rice:

When I boil rice, sometimes I stir fry the dry grains in some olive oil in the bottom of the pan before I add water (Turkish rice trick), and I only add the water just enough to cover my hand, if I lay it flat on top of the rice in the pan. I turn the heat to high and I let the rice and water come to a boil, uncovered.

When it boils, I cover it with a top slightly tipped, and I turn the water to medium, allowing it to boil off the water, and when the water is gone, I cover the lid tightly and turn the heat to medium lo. The rice at this point is just steaming in what little water is left, and I am careful to prevent the rice from burning on the bottom. Use a fork to fluff it when checking for readiness.

Frying Rice:


When you fry rice, make the rice ahead and put it in the fridge or use old rice that was stored in the freezer. Fried rice is what you do to save old rice.

So, if you didn't have rice for dinner the night before, make the rice and put it in the freezer, so it comes out right when you fry it.

The key to fried rice- fry the ingredients separate from the rice and then add everything together at the end and give it one last stir.

 Add a table spoon of oil or butter to a hot pan (wok preferably with this and everything else for this recipe), and sauté the onions, garlic, diced carrots, and whatever other vegetables you may want in rice.

Set this aside after about 60 seconds of stirring.

Crack an egg in the pan and immediately begin to sauté back and forth (not for too long, just to scramble it softly). Set the softly cooked egg aside and prepare to fry the rice with soy sauce and butter/oil in the pan.

Sautee the rice back and forth until golden brown and remove and set aside. Add the vegetables to the pan and sauté with a dash or two of soy sauce and a pinch of five spice powder if you want. Then add back the rice, once you have the desired consistency of the veggies and eggs. Stir it all together, and you have fried rice.

Homemade Potato Chips and Hashbrowns

 

You need:

 

Potatoes (any kind)

Oil for frying (I like olive unless deep frying then I use vegetable)

potato peeler

 

If you have a potato peeler and some potatoes, all you have to do is peel your potatoes with the peeler (if you don't like skin) and then start from the top and peel the potato at the tip of on end to make thin circles.

If you want potato chips, leave them as in the pic above and drop them one at a time (very quickly) into the oil (don't overload and they cook very quickly, so be prepared to pull them out and put on paper to dry).

 

After I sliced the potatoes into thin circles, I diced them up to make hash browns.

I also diced up onions and garlic.

 

Better than Waffle House!

 

Add a few table spoons of olive oil and let it get hot (but don't burn it...go to medium high).

Drop a quarter cup or so of the potatoes and top it with onions and garlic.

Kosher Hebrew National Franks were on sale. All Beef Franks are the best!

I burned a little onion, but it was good anyway.

Eggs scrambled with cheese and veggies, toast, franks, hash browns for breakfast.