Chinese American Shrimp with Lobster Sauce | Wok Wednesdays

This Chinese American Shrimp with Lobster Sauce is probably not the most photogenic dish, but it is amazingly flavorful. Amazingly.

Hardest part of making this shrimp dish? Finding fermented black beans. Fortunately I am part of a fabulous Wok Wednesdays community, so as I wandered through my local Asian market unable to locate said beans, and unable to get help from the employees, I turned to my Wok Wednesdays friends and posted my plea for help. Within minutes, someone posted which aisle as well as a photo of the package of the beans. Others chimed in with their feedback as well. What an amazing community!

Another thing I learned? Lobster sauce does not contain lobster. All righty then.

This dish contains shrimp, clam juice, cornstarch, soy sauce, pepper, garlic, ginger, ground pork, Thai chili, fermented black beans, egg, and scallions. It involves peeling the shrimp and boiling the shells in the clam juice to create the lobster sauce. It's pretty cool watching the shrimp shells turn pink as they boil in the clam juice.

The egg and scallions are added during the last few seconds of stir frying, and give the dish it's "cloudy" look. Just know that it is totally flavorful. You just want to eat it. And eat it some more.

The members of the Wok Wednesdays group are wokking their way through Grace Young's Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge. We get assistance from Grace herself when we have questions about the recipes and wok cooking. How cool is that? To get the recipe for this dish, check out page 179 of the book. You won't regret it. Every recipe in this book has been a revelation.