Shrimp Lo Mein
It’s Test Kitchen Tuesday, so it is time to add something new to the recipe collection. Seafood Lo Mein sounds so good right now, I am looking forward to trying this recipe I discovered on emerils.com—the sesame oiled noodle cake really piques my interest. Just glancing at the ingredient list, I can tell already that I’ll probably only use two types of seafood like shrimp and scallops, but will stay true to the rest of the recipe. Would love to have you join me—jump-in with all the seafood choices or make adjustments as you need to, it’s all good!
In the next week or so:
1. Make the recipe (posted below)
2. Leave a comment describing your experience, opinion, adjustments, or suggestions. ♥ If you do focus on altering it to economize, choose healthier ingredients or techniques, make it gluten-free/allergy sensitive, embellish for entertaining, or incorporate into batch/once-a-month cooking, please mention that too.
3. Subscribe to comments so you can see what others have done.
4. If you are feeling especially proud of your creation, snap a photo and send it to me at savoringtoday@comcast.net so it can be included.
Seafood Lo Mein
Source: Emeril Lagasse
Servings: 4-6
5 tablespoons peanut oil
1 pound thin Chinese egg noodles
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground white or black pepper
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 soft-shelled crabs — cleaned and quartered
1/4 pound calamari — body sacs cut into 1″ pieces, tentacles trimmed
1/4 pound small shrimp — peeled and deveined
1/4 pound bay scallops
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup green onion tops — half-inch slices
4 ounces straw mushrooms — wiped clean
4 ounces snow peas — ends snapped and strings removed
Lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan with peanut oil and set aside.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook until just tender, about 4 minutes. Drain and transfer to a large bowl. Toss with the sesame oil, to coat lightly. Place in the greased cake pan.
In a wok or large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the peanut oil over high heat to almost smoking. Add the noodle cake and fry over medium-high heat, swirling occasionally to prevent the noodles from sticking. Cook until golden brown on the bottom, about 6 minutes. With a spatula, flip the noodle cake and brown the other side. Remove from the wok and keep warm until ready to serve.
In a small bowl, combine the oyster sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch, salt, and pepper, and stir to dissolve the cornstarch.
In a wok or large saute pan, heat the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the crab quarters, and cook, stirring for 30 seconds. Add the calamari, shrimp and scallops and cook, stirring, until the shrimp are pink and the seafood is just cooked through, about 2 minutes. Add the pepper flakes, green onions, mushrooms, and snow peas, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the oyster sauce mixture and cook until thickened.
Serve immediately over the noodle cake.
This recipe looks good to me, most of the needed stuff are in there as well as the techniques. The only difference to what I usually do is I use fish sauce instead of oyster sauce, I do also use bamboo shoots and crab is sometimes substituted to surimi.
I wondered about fish sauce…thanks so much for checking it out and letting me know, I feel like it’s going to be a great meal.
Let me just say, “Wow, this was a great meal.” Deep flavor, perfect textures, we will not miss take-out. I appreciate the input from my blog-friend at Ang Sarap for the suggestion of adding fish sauce, which I had on-hand so it was an easy adjustment. As you can tell in the photos, it’s as pleasing to the eye as the palate.
Here’s what I did:
1. Used coconut oil instead of peanut oil
2. Added 1 tablespoon of fish sauce to the oyster sauce, soy sauce, pepper, and corn starch. (In Emeril’s directions he mentions salt, which is not mentioned in the ingredients–the fish sauce can easily replace any need for added salt, but adds flavor too.)
3. Used 1 lb. Shrimp only, so really my version should be called Shrimp Lo Mein
4. Added 1/4 cup julienne cut carrots with the garlic
5. Couldn’t find straw mushrooms, but did find Brown Beech mushrooms, also known as “Buna Shimeji” — loved them!
6. Mixed the noodles in before serving instead of pouring sauce over the “noodle cake”.
Now that I can visualize how the recipe comes together, next time I will decrease the amount of noodles (may even use rice noodles to avoid the wheat) and increase the vegetables by adding zucchini (julienne-cut) too. This recipe would work great with chicken, beef, or combination lo mein. A great find!
Note: This recipe serves 3-4, not 4-6 (portion size shown in photo)
Wow that looks really good, the veggies look crispy and noodles looks perfectly cooked.
Congratulations that dish looks like it was prepared by an Authentic Asian Chef.
Thanks, that means a lot coming from you! Thanks for stopping back by