Trials of Will: Steamed Spicy Super Garlic Shrimp

FMMS presents, for your reading pleasure, a new feature entitled the ‘The Trials of Will’! This will be a semi-regular series of posts featuring our great friend Will Tang.

By day, Will is a VP for the philanthropy non-profit we2o.org, but by night he’s a cunning cook who can always be counted on to make something exciting and delicious. So, we decided to put him to the test!

Each one of us will be presenting Will with a challenge of varying difficulty and then we’ll document the results. Let’s go, Willbo!

Trail #1: Challenger Marco Provenzano

I had the honour of presenting Will with his first trial, and because I’m so nice, I decided to go easy on him and request a simple dish.

Category: Food
Challenge: Something Asian and delicious
Difficulty: Easy

Challenge Accepted: Steamed Spicy Super Garlic Shrimp

Ingredients:

15 – 20 large shrimp with the peels (heads optional)
8 cloves garlic chopped finely
1 tsp sesame oil
4 green onions chopped for garnish
1 tbsp cornstarch
75 ml Chinese cooking wine
200 ml chicken stock
1 diced chili (thai chillies also work – the more you add, the spicier it is)
1 tsp Chinese chili oil
Chopped Cilantro (optional)
2 cups rice (optional)

Recipe:

Step 1: Rinse and clean the shrimp thoroughly,  leaving on the shell, and if you aren’t too squeamish (you really shouldn’t be) the heads as well.

Step 2: Toss the shrimp, diced chilli and chopped garlic and place in a shallow bowl

Step 3:  Add and stir in the chicken stock to the cornstarch until the solution becomes milky and smooth. Add the Chinese cooking wine, sesame oil and chilli oil. Pour the mixture on top of the shrimp and distribute evenly.

Step 4:  Fill a pot with about 1 inch of water and bring to a boil. Once the water is nice and hot, place the shallow bowl of shrimp in the pot. It should take exactly 10 mins for the shrimp to steam through. Add chopped green onion and cilantro leaves for garnish.

Step 5: This dish works perfectly with rice and noodles. My favourite part was the sauce, but the secret is to leave the shrimp heads on which brings it all together. It might seem tedious to peel the shrimp at the end, but it’s definitely worth the effort.

Despite taking over a month to get back to me on this recipe, I still found it incredibly delicious. I highly recommend adding the rice, turning the dish from something of an appetizer to a great dinner dish.

Presentation: 9/10
Taste: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10

Okay Will, you pass this one (maybe it was too easy)…

We’ll make the next one harder.