Vietnamese Sweet and Sour Crispy Shrimp

    Many years ago, during the early 1980's,  when my husband and I increased the size of our family of five to include five Vietnamese children, I realized that I was also being given the opportunity to learn about another cuisine.  I had an interest in Asian cooking already and had purchased the required stainless steel wok, a few "oriental" cookbooks and taken a class or two on how to use my wok.  (I still use that big, awesome wok.)  Now I needed to learn how to cook Vietnamese dishes to ease the transition of these young boys into the western world and to help them retain a sense of their culture, besides broadening our eating habits.   After adopting our Vietnamese boys, I had the opportunity to learn how to cook in a Vietnamese restaurant in exchange for helping the owners with their English, and I also was lucky enough to become good friends with the mother of one of my son's friends. 

Usually once a month,  Lan would come and pick me up at my house and we would spend an entire Saturday, going from one exotic Vietnamese grocery store to another.  I watched her sniff meat, discard unacceptable produce with loud disdain, learned how to buy rice and which was the best brand of fish sauce,  and at the end of the day, she and her teenage daughter would come back to my house where the kitchen would become my personal Vietnamese cooking class.  We would prepare what we had purchased that day for my family's dinner that evening.  It wasn't all just to my advantage however, as Lan was eager to learn about cooking in a western kitchen and especially how to use an oven.  Cooks in Vietnam don't generally use ovens. I still have a Viet daughter-in-law that uses hers for the storage of pots and pans.  Foods are prepared over wood or propane flames or outside on kind of barbecue where meats could be hung and roasted over the fire.  Lan had lived with an oven in her American kitchen for several years and had never used it.  I showed her how to cook beef roasts, duck roasts, chicken along with cakes and pies, and she loved it.  The Vietnamese cuisine includes French breads and pastries but she had always purchased these at markets in Vietnam because she had no oven in her home.  So this new cooking skill opened up all sorts of possibilities for her.  We both learned from each other!

One of the biggest hits in our family was her Sweet and Sour Crispy Shrimp.   While a little messy to prepare, it is an easy and impressive dish to serve and wonderful to eat.  Not too sour, not to sweet - and a trick to keep the shrimp light and crispy.  This is Lan's recipe as close as I could come to writing it down as she led me through the preparation steps.

Crispy fried shrimp - with a sweet and sour sauce poured over it just before serving.   You must do it just before serving or you'll have soggy shrimp.   Better, I think is to ladle the sweet and sour sauce onto the plate than top with all the crispy fried shrimp, drizzle a little more of the sauce over the shrimp but don't let them get soaked in it.

Shrimp Batter:

1 to 2 lbs of fresh, large shrimp or prawns.

1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. water
1 tsp. vegetable oil

Sweet Sour Sauce

Serve with hot Jasmine Rice


Directions:

I make the sauce last so that the vegetables don't cook up too fast, but have everything already cut and ready to go once the shrimp have been fried.  The sauce just takes minutes to prepare.

Peel and devein shrimp. Combine flour, cornstarch, baking powder, egg, salt, water and 1 teaspoon oil. Mix well. Dip shrimp into batter and fry in hot oil (375 degrees) until golden brown.

Ladle the sauce onto a plate, top with the fried shrimp, garnish with sliced green onions.

SWEET SOUR SAUCE:

1/2 c. sliced carrots
1/2 c. chopped green pepper
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. catsup
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. water, divided
3 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 c. vinegar
1 (15 1/4 oz.) can unsweetened pineapple chunks, drained or you can use fresh pineapple.

Cook carrots in small amount of boiling water 1 to 2 minutes. Add green pepper and cook an additional 1 minute. Drain and rinse vegetables in cold water.
Combine sugar, catsup, soy sauce, salt and 2/3 cup water in a saucepan; bring to boil. Dissolve cornstarch in 1/3 cup water to make a paste. Gradually add cornstarch paste and vinegar to sauce mixture. Cook stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened. Stir in pineapple and vegetables. 

Garnish with sliced green onions and slices of fresh tomatoes, sometimes I sprinkle a little fresh cilantro over the dish as well.