Taiwanese Meat Sauce

Taiwanese Meat Sauce

Think of this a a Taiwanese version of a bolognese sauce.  Just like with fried rice and many other traditional recipes, every Taiwanese home has their own version of this dish.  It's one of the staple foods that can be used multiple ways: mix it with rice or noodles for a quick meal or add a little to sauted vegetables to give a little extra flavor.  The ingredients to this recipe are ground pork, onion, ginger and soy sauce.  I like to add a few other ingredients in my personal version, hope you like it!

Ingredients:
1 lb Ground Pork
1 Medium Brown or Sweet Onion, Diced
1 Medium Carrot, Diced
2 Teaspoons of Grated Ginger
1-2 Cups of Diced Soy Beancurd
2 Star Anise
2-3 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon of Rice Wine
1 Teaspoon of White Pepper
6 Soft Boiled Eggs (Optional)













Instructions:
Add a little cooking oil to a 3-4 quart sauce pot over medium high heat.  Do not add too much oil, as the ground pork should have enough fat content that will render when cooking, you just want a little oil to get the meat to start browning without sticking to the bottom of the pot.  Add the ground pork and slightly brown, stirring occasionally.  Add the onion, carrots, and soy beancurd; saute and cook for about 3-5 minutes until all the meat and veggies are browned.

Add the aromatics and seasoning: ginger, star anise, rice wine, white pepper, and soy sauce.  Give everything a good stir then ADD WATER, just enough to cover the mixture by about 1/2 an inch.  Bring to a boil, cover and simmer on low for about an hour.

***Optional eggs: my husband likes to add some soft boiled eggs to the pot at this point.  The eggs will simmer with the mixture and you'll end up with some lovely soy braised eggs.***

Once finished, fish out the star anise and dispose because they've done their job of adding a wonderful licorice flavor to the mixture but the stars themselves are not fun to bite into.  You can then spoon over rice or noodles and enjoy!  I like to cook this once a week and divide it up into small single portions then stick in the freezer.  ***DO NOT FREEZE THE EGGS***  Super convenient to defrost for a quick meal at home or pack up for lunch.

Soy Braised Ridgeback Shrimp

I saw these fiesty shrimp jumping around in one of the many live seafood tanks at the nearby 99 Ranch Market and I had to take them home with me.  Not only were they fresh and definitely alive, they were only $4.99/lb!  Shrimp and prawns are one of my husband's favorite foods and if you know anything about the price of live prawns, you know that they are pretty pricey.  The Santa Barbara Spot Prawns in a nearby tank were over $20/lb.  This peaked my curiosity even more about these wildly affordable underwater acrobats, so I bought a pound, brought them home and did a little research.  Apparently we don't see these shrimp around often because their shells are a bit harder and more abbrasive than regular shrimp AND they have this enzyme that causes them to turn an unattractive bruised color when they die so they have to be kept alive.  Despite these cons, one big pro is their tasty sweet meat, something between a large crawfish and small lobster.  Excited to try them out, I rinsed them with some water and decided on a simple quick braise preparation.
*Note: I wasn't joking when I say they jump!  When you bring them home, make sure you place them in some water in a large and deep enough bowl to contain some 6-10 inch jumps.

Ingredients:

1 lb Ridgeback shrimp (live)
Fresh ginger
Green onion/scallions
Rice wine
Soy sauce
Cooking oil










Julienne a couple ounces of fresh ginger and a couple stalks of scallions.  Heat a couple teaspoons of cooking oil in a large saucepan that has a lid.  Toss the ginger and scallions (reserve some of the green portion of the scallions for garnish) into the sauce pan and cook for about a minute then put the shrimp in the pan and drizzle with about a tablespoon of soy sauce, a couple tablespoons of rice wine, and cover.

Turn to low heat and let them simmer for only about 5 minutes or until they curl and turn a bright red.  DO NOT OVER COOK!

Plate and serve immediately with some of the sauce drizzled on and topped with the reserved julienned scallions.  DELISH!