Monday, January 28, 2019

Sweet and sour









Oh, don't mind me, I'm just cooking. I'm making Sweet and Sour Shrimp! Well, sort of Sweet and Sour Shrimp, but actually a little more like Fried Shrimp and Seared Broccoli in Sezchuan Sauce. Yeah, that.

It's going to be so good!

But it is taking a very long time to cook. I wonder if I will ever get to eat it. I don't think it helps much that I have had to come work at the library for eight hours in the middle of the process.

Last night I peeled the shrimp. Then I dredged them in flour, salt, pepper, and a little corn starch. I dipped them in beaten egg. Then I coated them in panko bread crumbs. Then I fried them in walnut oil until they were golden and crispy.

It was a lot of work. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They'll try to. I've seen them do so in those fancy cookbooks. But Thomas Keller won't. He is a revered and very famous chef and I saw a glamorous ad for some online class he was doing. At the end he said something like, and I wildly paraphrase here, "Cooking great food requires commitment and time. And remember, patience, patience, patience." 

I don't have a lot of patience. Like when I dropped all my shrimp in the panko bread crumbs BECAUSE IT WAS SO TEDIOUS ONE AT A TIME!

First you had to peel each little shrimp. Then you had to wiggle each little string of gut out of each little shrimp. Then you had to roll each shrimp around in the flour. Then you had to dip each shrimp in the egg. Then you had to AAAAUUUUUUGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

So I only have great food occasionally.

But where were we? Oh, then we set aside the golden shrimp and cooked cut up broccoli in the oil, adding chunks of onion and baby sweet peppers until they were all softened and glossy. I set that aside too. Then I went to sleep. Then I woke up and had coffee and toast with my wife. Then I went to work.

That's where I am now, so I can see that it's all kind of a recipe cliffhanger. Surely you are wondering: What happens next?



Imagine how my stomach feels.









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