Super Speedy Spicy Sweet and Sour Shrimp

Ingredients

For the Stir fry

2 x tbsp sunflower oil (or other flavourless oil)

1 x red chili chopped finely

3 x garlic cloves chopped finely

A thumb sized piece of ginger, grated

550gr / 1.2 lb shrimp (prawns), raw, but peeled, de veined and cleaned

1 x pak choi (or 2 baby pak choi)

4 x spring onions (scallions) chopped to about 1 cm / 0.5in. pieces

Some fresh coriander (cilantro) roughly chopped to dress

For the Sauce

4 x tbsp tomato ketchup

2 x tbsp light soy sauce

2x tbsp Chinese rice wine vinegar

2 x tbsp honey

2 x tsp Shao Xing rice wine (optional)

Preparation

Method

1. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a bowl, taste it to check if you like the balance of flavour and adjust if you wish. Set this aside.

2. Heat the oil on a very high heat in a wok. If you don’t have a wok, a non-stick frying pan is fine. Get the oil as hot as you can, just below smoking point. Check the heat by dropping a piece of spring onion (scallion) and if it sizzles immediately, the oil is hot enough.

3. Add the chili, garlic and ginger, stir and cook for about 30 seconds. Add the spring onions (scallions) and cook for a further minute.

4. Add the shrimp (prawns) cook for about 2 minutes or until they turn pink.

5. Add the sauce, keeping the heat high so that as soon as it hits your pan or wok, it sizzles and reduces.

6. When the sauce has thickened a little, add the pak choi, mix through and cover it, cooking only for a minute.

7. Serve with simply boiled white rice and sprinkle with some fresh coriander (cilantro).

Tips and Variations

• This meal works great with chicken or pork too. The cooking time will be longer though.

• Mix up your vegetables for variation. I often add some beansprouts, pineapple chunks (a bit retro, but I love it!) and sweetcorn. Some other, longer cooking vegetables that work well are carrots and red peppers – I like to cut them into matchsticks.