Prawn and Samphire Stir Fry

Usually right about now I would be posting my weekly meal plan, however I used Word 2007 on my laptop at home to write the menu plan, and when I tried to open the document at work this morning to post, its all scrambled! Work only has Word 2003! I forgot to convert the file! Grrr so hopefully I'll get that posted tonight.

I have been taking part in this round of Adopt-a-Blogger, and my adoptive parent is Hopie of Hopies Kitchen, we got off to a slow start, but now we're motoring, and she has been giving me lots of tips! She has a fantastic blog of her own, written in both French and English, and I've been learning a lot, and improving my French, just by reading through that. I can really recommend Adopt-a-Blogger if you're just starting out in the blogging world. I recently did an interview with her and she has just posted it on her blog, so go and check it out! I am going to try one of her recipes in the not too distant future so watch out for that as well.

This meal was a quick one I had after coming home from a very long day at work last week. It took me all of 10 minutes to prepare and cook. The longest part was cooking the rice noodles I served it with. Samphire is one of my favourite vegetables, it has a really short season typically only 5-6 weeks and is grown on salt marshes in and around the coasts of Norfolk. Usually I just steam it quickly and serve it with a bit of butter on top with fish or game. It tastes like nothing else I can think of, but is so good and it works really well in this stir fry. I used enoki mushrooms instead of leeks as I had no leeks and the mushrooms needed using up.



Prawn and Samphire Stir Fry (from Chinese Food Made Easy by Chine He Huang)
(Serves 2)

1tbsp groundnut oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
6-8 cooked large prawns
1 tsp shaoxing rice wine
150g fresh samphire wood stems removed or marsh samphire, preserved in brine
150g baby leeks, trimmed
2 spring onions, trimmed and cut into 2 in pieces
1 tsp light soy sauce
sea salt to taste

Heat a wok until smoking and add the groundnut oil. Add the garlic and stir fry for a few seconds Add the prawns and stir fry for 1-2 mins, then add the shaoxing rice wine and cook for another few seconds.

Stir in the fresh samphire, then add the leeks and spring onions. Stir fry for one minute, then season, to taste, with the light soy sauce and sea salt.