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Chinese Cooking Challenge- Day 3

Stir-fried Prawn, Edamame and Pine Nut Lettuce Wraps

By Two Noobs One WokPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
6
Our version

Sunday 10th May 2020

Today was my turn in the kitchen. We had an exciting event happen the other day, one of the rings on our hob was on and tripped the switch. So now we are down to one working ring. Luckily, we are called “One Wok Two Noobs” so we only need one ring- let’s hope it stays working until the new cooker comes!

Today we attempted Stir-fried Prawn, Edamame and Pine Nut Lettuce Wraps. Getting hold of the ingredients wasn’t too hard this time- except from the edamame beans which are little baby (or immature if you want to be technical) soybeans. We looked at the picture and googled them and agreed that they looked very much like broad beans so that’s what we got.

For the preparation you had to butterfly some prawns. This is when you cut a line from the top to the bottom and open it up, so it looks like a butterfly (you do have to use your imagination a little bit). This was a new thing for me, so it took a bit of time and was a bit fiddly but eventually I managed to get all the prawns butterflied. Once I had prepared all of the ingredients, Tadger came in to see how I was doing (and to make sure I wasn’t setting anything on fire no doubt). He read out the instructions as I mixed the ingredients and I added more items when instructed. I enjoy this way of cooking. Tadger was very defensive at first about cooking as a team but he came in willingly and read out the instructions. I’d say that’s teamwork!

The preparation for this dish was very simple, only setback was the butterflying of the prawns which, with practice you could get quite quick at. The cooking- as always, took no time at all. With the wok clock which I explained in the last entry and the heat of the wok, it really does take only a few minutes to cook the ingredients.

This was a really funky dish. It was described as an afternoon snack or a healthy dinner. Serving 2 people for dinner or 4 people as a snack. As you can see from the picture, you use the lettuce as a wrap. I will warn you, it can get pretty messy, you might want to prepare by getting some kitchen roll before hand. You create the filling which is prawns, peppers and those funky edamame beans (or broad works too) and use hoisin sauce as a dressing. I thought it was great fun but Tadger went for the less messy approach and used a knife and fork.

Apparently, to get the perfect lettuce bowl shape, you remove the stalk, pour hot water over it then immediately submerge it in ice-cold water for at least a minute. We did not attempt this because we had a third of a lettuce and to be honest, I read the instructions a few times and decided it was too much effort. We managed to get good enough bowl shapes in my opinion though and it doesn't look too dissimilar from the books version!

The professional version

We loved this dish but it did seem like we were eating two sides. We reckoned that it is not quite enough for a main meal but would make a really fun starter or side to accompany another dish.

With this in mind, we rated it:

Simplicity to make: 4/5

Tastiness: 3/5 (as a main) 4/5 (as a side dish)

We would definitely make this again and interestingly, both agreed that had we been choosing what to cook, would not have chosen this. It goes to show, that this challenge is helping our cuisine already and taking us out of our comfort zone.

Thanks for taking the time to read about our challenge. Just a reminder that the book is called “Chinese Unchopped” by Jeremy Pang. Join us next time when we attempt to make “Chilli and Garlic ‘Wealthy’ Clams”!

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