Sang Choy Bao (Chinese Lettuce Rolls)
A seriously yummy, fancy "wrap" style entree - delicately-flavoured but rather messy to eat - though one does improve with practice, and you will want to practice.
Serves 4.
Ingredients:
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250 g pork mince |
250 g uncooked prawns, peeled and deveined, chopped into smaller bits if large |
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3 cm piece green ginger, finely sliced |
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely minced |
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1 red chilli, finely sliced |
6 spring onions, finely sliced |
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2 tbspn soy sauce |
2 tspn sesame oil |
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2 tbspn rice wine or sherry |
2 tbspn chicken stock |
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paste of 1 tbspn cornflour to 2 tbspn water |
pepper, salt |
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To Serve: |
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Vietnamese mint or fresh coriander leaves |
8 lettuce cups - iceberg or butter lettuce leaves washed and trimmed into neat round shapes (keep as large a shape as possible though!) |
Method:
Heat canola oil in a wok until hazy; add pork mince and stir fry until colour changes to pale brown. Add ginger, garlic, chilli and spring onions, stir fry for 5 minutes or so before adding the prawns, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine or sherry and stock.
Combine well and cook for a few more minutes to amalgamate the flavours and until prawn bits have changed colour.
Add the cornflour/water paste and stir through. Cook a few minutes longer, allowing mixture to thicken, before removing to a serving platter.
Set table with the platter of prawn and pork mixture, and the plate of Vietnamese mint or fresh coriander and lettuce cups in the centre of the table. Give each person a plate (and a spoon and napkin to deal with drips).
The idea is to take a lettuce cup, and spoon a tablespoon or so of meat mixture into the cup. Add a little bit of coriander or mint, then tuck in the sides of the lettuce cup - stem end first, then each "side" to overlap each other, then the last side - and eat.