Good morning and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

If you’re celebrating today and need a few Irish menu suggestions well, here you go.

Our menu today is very LA-centric.

Live in LA long enough you will find yourself in Chinatown. If you’ve been to Chinatown more than a few times, you’re going to find Yang Chow restaurant.

[Hint: It’s on Broadway in Chinatown right on your left just after you drive under the big dragon arch]

And if you find Yang Chow? Your ass is going to get familiar with slippery shrimp.

People?

This is a dangerously delicious item.

It’s also unbelievably addicting. So addicting in fact that youngest right and I, who’ve been there probably a dozen times now, just started calling this dish “Crack.”

The conversations are great. “Want to go downtown and get some crack?”

“Hell yes I want some crack.”

You get the idea.

One day the kid and I got there right as they opened to test out a theory.

Every time we’ve visited we noticed slippery shrimp on basically every fucking table in the restaurant. That day when it opened there were youngest right and I and probably a dozen tables that filled up as soon as the doors opened for business.

After about 15 minutes or so the waiters started to bring food out of the kitchen and I’ll be damned if they didn’t slap a dish of slippery shrimp on every fucking table that was occupied.

That is a true story.

Another oddly named but ridiculously fantastic item is shrimp toast. Puzzling name to be sure HOWEVER!

It’s pretty much toasted garlic bread with chopped shrimp griddled in. 

I’ll wait a second while you process that. 

Actually now that I think about it, they do EVERYTHING well. I haven’t ordered a bad dish yet. Their Szechwan chicken is also dynamite and maybe I should look at doing a knock off version of that one day.

Yang Chow is hands down my favorite Chinese American restaurant experience ever and if your travels find you out here?

Your ass better be calling my ass because you KNOW we’re going downtown to score our ass some “Crack.”

I haven’t been to Yang Chow since 2019. Hell, I hardly ever go to any restaurant to eat inside since the pandemic, unless I’m on vacation that is, but I was missing me some slippery shrimp.

I started doing some Google research and guess what I fucking found?

Published in the LA Times food section in 2005 was this.

https://www.latimes.com/recipe/yang-chow-slippery-shrimp

And you just KNOW my ass had to give this a try.

Today is that attempt.

Break it down for me LA Times!

 

Yang Chow Slippery Shrimp!

 

“1 pound large shrimp

¼ cup plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch

¼ cup plus 2 teaspoons water

2 cups oil

2 large cloves garlic, minced

½ teaspoon minced ginger root

½ teaspoon cayenne

1 tablespoon tomato sauce or ketchup

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 tablespoon white wine

1 ½ tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon salt

4 green onions, sliced

 

1 – Peel, devein and butterfly the shrimp.

2 – In a bowl, mix the shrimp with one-quarter cup -cornstarch to completely coat the shrimp.

3 – Combine the remaining 2 teaspoons cornstarch with 2 teaspoons water in a bowl and set aside.

4 – Pour the oil into a skillet or wok and heat over medium heat until hot. Add the shrimp and deep-fry until golden, about 45 seconds.

5- Remove the shrimp and drain the oil from the wok, leaving 1 tablespoon for stir-frying. Reheat the wok. Add the garlic, ginger and cayenne. Stir for a few seconds, then add the tomato sauce, vinegar, wine, sugar, salt, one-quarter cup water and the reserved cornstarch mixture. Cook and stir until the sauce is thick.

6 – Add the shrimp; toss until covered with sauce. Add the green onions, stir, turn out onto a platter and serve.”

 

Now let’s get after this shit. I went verbatim on the instructions so it will be easy to follow along.

Since this dish comes together wicked fast we have to do our prep work in advance.

Get to chopping!

Green onions first.

 Kind of dig the vertigo inducing angle of that shot.

Then you’ve got your ginger and garlic.

Also dig the “sunburst” effect on that photo. 

Now we get to work on the protein. 

These were “18-20” count large shell-on shrimp. Peel and devein all of them slimy buggers.

All of them.

If you reflect back to some of our previous efforts at Chinese style cuisine you’ll remember that you will be using A LOT of cornstarch in the prep.

That’s a quarter cup for the dredge. I mean just look at this.

You will also need to make a cornstarch slurry, with two tablespoons each of water and cornstarch.

Here it is next to the rest of the sauce.

You will need two cups of oil because we are going to deep fry the shrimp. These fuckers cook fast too. About 45 seconds to a minute depending on your oil temp. I used canola oil for this today.

Working in batches, keep frying until all of the shrimp has been fried.

Hey! Cooking is thirsty business!

Once the shrimp have been fried, reserve just a tablespoon of the cooking oil and start the main proceedings by giving a hot and fast cook to the garlic and the ginger. Maybe 30 seconds or so on high heat.

Next we add in the sauce and the slurry. Important note here! This shit comes together FAST.

Turn off the heat once the sauce gets hot and bubbly. Now all you’ve got to do is add in the fried shrimp, stir to coat and turn the contents of the pan onto a plate. Finally add the green onions for garnish.

Zoom in a bit on that wouldya?

Oh fuck me that is gorgeous.

Lest you think the only thing I served for dinner was a big plate of slipper shrimp, NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!

I did also make some fried rice to accompany. For the record, of course I cooked the fried rice first and kept it warm while I finished the slippery shrimp. The shrimp was the main focus of our meal and we wanted that shit HOT!

Everyone of you know this shit by now but a good fried rice starts with “old and cold” rice. I cooked the rice the day before and refrigerated it overnight.

The rice starts out the way any good Chinese style food recipe does by adding some oil – peanut oil for this one – a splash of sesame oil and then we make with the sauteing of the garlic, chopped green onion and ginger. Hey! We just did something like that didn’t we?

Next crack in an egg or two for a quick scramble.

Get your rice and choice of veggies in next.

I find using frozen mixed vegetables, without those ugly little green lima beans though, and to be honest I ain’t that crazy about the frozen green beans neither. The frozen stuff just works here and it’s super quick and easy.

Give a few healthy grinds of Szechwan peppercorn to your liking too.

Next we add in the soy sauce and I like to use a little splash of hoisin too. Gives it a nice round sweetness.

No need to panic GumbyGirl. I didn’t use too much soy sauce. What you have here is a pour of light soy sauce and a pour of dark soy sauce. I had both on hand so why the hell not? Dark soy isn’t anywhere near as salty as light soy is and I like the dankness and color it brings. It’s a serious dark color palette at work.

Now let’s plate everything up.

OK, OK you caught me. Those are frozen soup dumplings on the side there. You know what though? They were pretty goddamn tasty.

Was this as good as Yang Chow’s slippery shrimp. Don’t even ask! Was it delicious and easy and did I get nostalgic for Yang Chow?

Bet your ass I did. The elements are all there. Sweet, heat, crispiness, they are all present and accounted for. 

Don’t forget this was my first time trying this. That’s pretty fucking successful for a first effort. The cooks at Yang Chow only have about 200,000 more reps making this dish than I do so I still feel pretty goddamn proud over here.

Definitely a hit and I sure as hell would try this one again.

I think you’ll enjoy this take on an LA classic if you make it at home as well.

That’s gonna do it for us today. 

Don’t forget we’ve got selection Sunday today and March Madness starts next week.

The sports calendar is starting to wake up a bit.

I appreciates ya.

See you all next week.

 

PEACE!