“Make the perfection to even more perfect.”
You don’t want meals with just meat, meat and meat throughout the CNY. Vegetables are essential to our diets, too, even during the festive, of course! And there are many greens can still be symbolical, for instances, the asparagus I’ve cooked here.
I named this dish as 锦上添花 (Pronounced as ‘Jin Shang Tian Hua’). Do you also find the appearance of this dish looks pretty much like the beautiful flowers (the prawns) blooming on the strong branches (the asparagus)? That’s the direct translation of these Chinese characters, which to be deciphered as makes the perfection even more perfect.
Moreover, this is a very simple-to-cook and delicious dish, with the use of such premium sauce (dried scallop sauce), the XO sauce. No worries, there isn’t any alcohol content in it. It simply refers to its premium quality. See some of the details of XO sauce in my previous post where the same recipe was use with the variation of chicken meat instead: XO Sauce with Chicken & Asparagus
Ingredients
200 – 300 grams of medium prawns/ shrimps, shelled with tail intact, trimmed and deveined
Handful of asparagus (蘆筍), cut into 2″ long crosswise (*choose tender young shoots)
1½ tablespoons of XO sauce
Sprinkle of sugar
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of water
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
Seasoning for prawns:
1 teaspoon of light soy sauce
A pot of water (for blanching of asparagus)
Pinch of sugar
Method
1) Shell prawns with tail remained intact. Cut a slit on the back and devein. Season with light soy sauce. Set aside.
2) Boil a pot of water over high heat, and add sugar when boiled. Then, add asparagus and blanch it for one minute. Remove from pot and drain. Set aside for later.
3) Heat wok with oil over high fire. Add garlic and stir-fry till fragrant and lightly browned.
4) Add prawns and water. Stir fry for two minutes, or until pinked. Add blanched asparagus and stir fry for one minute. Add in XO sauce, stir fry to combine all ingredients well. Sprinkle sugar and continue to stir fry for another minute.
5) Transfer asparagus on a nice serving dish. Try to arrange in a way that the prawns are spreaded over the asparagus, resembling flowers on the branches, for better presentation. Serve.
This dish takes only 20 minutes to prepare and cook. Quick and easy symbolical dish for the CNY celebration.
A portion of this dish counts about 200kcal.
Tips: Get a bottle of XO sauce from major supermarkets. Find it at condiments section.