A Very Local Taiwanese Food - Stir Fried Shrimp With Scallions

Now that I am back to Indonesia, I tried to get reacquainted with my old school friends. One of them was Shinta. We used to be in the same class in primary school. She came from a very traditional Chinese family and she was trained by her mom to cook since she was young. So pumped her with many questions on where can I find this and that so I can cook better Chinese/Taiwanese food for my husband. She gave me more than an answer. She did one more step ahead of that by taking me personally to the wet market called "Pasar Pabean". This market is located at the oldest section of Surabaya where what we called Surabaya's China town is. Since I was born up until recently I have never been to that place! So I thanked Shinta very much for basically holding my hand through it. She showed me which pork sellers are good and why they are good. She even told me how should I call him to make him happy. She gave me lots of tips. For that I reward her kindness by sending her one of my Shanghainese dishes called "Lion Head". Even though it is just ugly, wet and stinky on certain area. I found out that I was not disgusted but actually I am charmed by it. I found that if I arrive there around 7, I could get a lot of fresh stuff with off course cheaper price. I don't even have to bargain to get cheaper price. They have lots of seafood, they are famous for their extra large shrimp about 20cm in length. But even more precious to me was, I found these tiny little shrimps that are just perfect too cook "Stir Fried Shrimp With Scallions". I have never seen supermarket sells these tiny shrimps. For one kilogram, without having to bargain, I paid only Rp. 20,000 or about US $ 2.20. I know I can make it cheaper but I just don't have the heart.



Stir Fried Shrimp With Scallions

Ingredients:
2/3 lb small river shrimps
5 scallions chopped
3 fresh chili peppers chopped
3 cloves garlic minced

Seasonings:
1 Tbs cooking wine
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
a dash of white pepper

Methods:

1. Rinse shrimps well and drain. Stir-fry in smoking oil rapidly over high heat and remove.
   
2. Heat 2 Tbs of oil in wok, stir-fry scallions, garlic, and chili peppers until fragrant, return shrimp and add all of the seasonings to mix.
3. Saute rapidly to let seasonings be absorbed by shrimp, cook until liquid is dry. Remove from heat and serve.

If you want to see the pictures of more Taiwanese traditional food that inspired me to made this dish you can visit my diary. I posted a lot of pictures there.