Chaoshan Raw Pickled Seafood 潮汕生腌海鲜

More traveling eats!  We’re still got more to talk about the absolutely marvelous food we had on our trip to Chaoshan 潮汕 area of Guangdong 廣東.  Oh dear readers, it was so fabulously food fulfilling!  It’s always so lovely to find yourself in a place where everything you eat is delicious, amirite!?

Pssst...check out our other traveling eats posts from this trip, Shantou Street Food 汕頭街頭美食 and Chaoshan Beef Hotpot 潮汕牛肉火鍋.

So this post is about the Chaoshan speciality, Raw Pickled Seafood 潮汕生腌海鲜.  Fresh, fresh seafood pickled in soy sauce, wine and aromatics is a rare delight.  It’s a straightforward process to make, requiring only soy sauce, aromatics, a touch of oil and a bit of time.  The only and important! trick to raw pickled seafood is that the seafood has to be super duper fresh.

We had heard about the famous Chaoshan raw pickled seafood of course.  Oh, how I had drooled away when watching the first season of Flavorful Origins documentary series featuring Chaoshan cuisine.  Omgoshdarnnitall!!  Pickled crabs!  Pickled shrimps!  Pickled every kind of shellfish!  So amazing the raw pickled seafood of Chaoshan!  

Macanese Shrimp Vermicelli Soup 澳門蝦湯米粉

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my 老公 has some roots in Macau.  His mother's family lived there for a couple of generations before moving to Hong Kong.  So he has an ongoing obsession with the place which is really all too easy to understand as Macau is an altogether fascinating place.  It's a city with a history nearing 500 years, one of the first trading posts in the Far East, and was and still is exquisitely poised inbetween East and West.

This unique characteristic shows through in both the people of Macau, the Macanese, and the Macanese cuisine.  They are both a mix of all the different cultural influences that touched upon the tiny trading port, from Chinese to Portuguese, to Malay and Japanese, Sinhalese and even Indian.  The cuisine of Macau is really the world's first 'fusion' food, using and mixing elements of all these cultures together to form a truly distinct cuisine.  So fascinating and truly unique, a thing hard to find in the current 'global' world.

As part of his recent Macau obbsession, my 老公 made this deceptively simple looking soup noodles and it was SO YUMMY!  This Macanese Shrimp and Vermicelli Soup Noodles  澳門蝦湯米粉, or Sopa de Lacassá, is a traditional Macanese dish usually prepared as a light lunch or perhaps an afternoon snack and is, as traditional and truly tasty food ought to be, a bit more complicated and time consuming than your average instant noodles, but TOTALLY worth it!! 

Stir Fried Milk 炒牛奶

This traditional Chinese dish famously from Daliang Town 大良鎮 is simple and yet oh so elegant!  Stir Fried Milk 炒牛奶 uses fresh milk, egg whites, starch and a clever cooking technique to create a dish of delicate clouds of snowy white curds interspersed with sea sweet shrimps, buttery pine nuts and flecks of richly flavored ham.  A real showstopper kind of dish!

Dragon Well Green Tea Shrimp Stir Fry 龍井炒蝦仁

Humm...besides making our lovely savory meat Zongzi and Grandma's red bean paste ZongZi for Dragon Boast Festival this year, I thought I would also make the traditional Dragon Well Green Tea Shrimp Stir Fry 龍井炒蝦仁 to celebrate both the rivers and the dragon boats that the festival centers around.

First of all, full confession, we didn't use Dragon Well tea 龍井茶 this time.  We meant to use this special tea but, rushing around at the last minute, found that our usual Chinese tea shop was closed for the day.  But we had all our shrimp already!  That's what happens when you decide things last minute...  But, in the end, things turned out okay, very okay as a matter of fact.  We had some tea at home and decided to just use what we had.  

Our Dragon Well (sometimes) Green Tea Shrimp Stir Fry 龍井炒蝦仁 turned out just fine, juicy velvety sea sweet shrimp dotted with tea leaves, smothered with an aromatic, smooth, tea scented sauce.  We actually liked this version better than when we made it with Dragon Well tea.

Stir Fried Ketchup Shrimp 茄汁蝦碌

We love shrimp!  It's got to be one of our favorite seafood items of all times.  What's there not to like, fresh shrimp is the most amazingly, succulently sweet meat that has an amazing crunchy yet tender bite to it.  

We have to careful when eating shrimp, however, as my little girl and I both struggle with eczema and shrimp unfortunately is one of those things that can cause the skin itchies.  But boy, oh, boy do I enjoy it the every once in a while we allow ourselves to indulge.  

This time around we made one of my childhood favorite stir fried shrimp dishes, the delectable Stir Fried Ketchup Shrimp, or 茄汁蝦碌.  This shrimp dish is sooo good that you'll find yourself licking the plate clean (like I do every time!)

Chinese Shrimp & Eggs Stir Fry 蝦仁炒蛋

Another favorite comfort food that we grew up with is the easy to prepare and delicious to eat Shrimp and Eggs Stir Fry, or 蝦仁炒蛋.  Tender soft flakes of egg clinging gently to plump pink sea fresh shrimp.  Two of my all time favorite things in one dish!  

Too bad that my eczema acts up if I eat this too often, otherwise I would seriously make this dish at least once a week.  But no one likes a grumpy gal with itchies all over, so we only have this every once in a while.  But when we do, it sure is a treat!  While this homey Chinese dish is quite straight forward to prepare, one does need to have a few things in their bag of tricks to pull it off.

Tofu with Shrimp 蝦仁豆腐

Tofu with Shrimp, or 蝦仁豆腐,  is a braised chinese dish that looks deceptively simple but is gorgeous when you eat it.  A soothingly mix of textures: the crunch of the sweet shrimp, the silkiness of the tofu flavored with the sea tastes of the fresh shrimp, the succulently tasty creamy sauce that clings gently to all.  This dish is divine!  

I had forgotten about it for a long time and recently, suddenly, recalled it and made it for dinner.  Yum!  It was one of my childhood favorites at the dining table.  And now, guess what, it seems that my little girl loves this dish too!  She just kept asking for more...

Drunken Shrimp 醉蝦 - Easy Breezy

Ah, the humble shrimp!  Sweet and succulent crustacean!  How can one resist the call of the just cooked shrimp, so tasty inside its armor of shell, so beautiful to look at, so crunchy yet tender, so brimming of sea flavor!  Well, if one has a problem with eczema like I do, one has to should resist it most of the time, just to save myself from the scratching and itching.  But in the special case when the suggestion of making Drunken Shrimp for dinner is proposed; well, how can one possibly refuse to make this easiest and tastiest of shrimp dishes?

Soy Sauce King Prawn Stir Fry 豉油王煎蝦

This simple yet sophisticated stir fry of the Soy Sauce King Prawn, or 豉油王煎蝦, is a dish that tests the wok skills.  It is one of those fast and furious stir frys where your skill makes or breaks the dish.  So be forewarned.  And be challenged.  If you succeed you will have the sweet reward of succulent King Prawn cooked and flavoured to perfection.