Bamboo Shoots with Surimi

 

Bamboo Shoots with Surimi

When a member of the family is allergic to shrimp, the cook has to resort to other means to pump flavor into vegetables. In this case, bamboo shoots that taste simply wonderful made with shrimp is cooked with surimi or fake crab. Louis Kemp makes a good product using a medley of fish to simulate the taste of shrimp or crab.

Surimi and Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce

Surimi Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce

"Surimi", often called “Imitation Crab”, is seafood made with Wild Alaska Pollock, a mild whitefish related to cod, which is flavored to taste like crab or lobster. To make surimi seafood, Wild Alaska Pollock is finely minced and then blended with other ingredients such as starch, salt, natural crab meat, and egg white. It is then formed, cooked and cut into the various shapes and styles you find at your local grocery store." This description was adapted from the Louis Kemp website.

Louis Kemp Crab Delights

These packages of Surimi come in a variety of sizes and are available in most supermarkets in my neighborhood.  I make this eggplant dish in the same way I've made Surimi in Black Bean Sauce, except this is made on the stove top. It still takes no longer than 20 minutes, so dinner can be on the table in less than half an hour. Feel free to substitute shrimp for surimi or even bite-size pieces of fish fillet and serve with hot rice or chapatis.

Surimi in Black Bean Sauce

Surimi in Black Bean Sauce

"Surimi seafood, often called “Imitation Crab”, is real seafood made with Wild Alaska Pollock, a mild whitefish related to cod, which is flavored with crab or lobster. To make surimi seafood, Wild Alaska Pollock is finely minced and then blended with other ingredients such as starch, salt, natural crab meat, and egg white. It is then formed, cooked and cut into the various shapes and styles you find at your local grocery store." This description was taken from the Louis Kemp website.

Louis Kemp Crab Delights

I like to have a package of crab delights on hand for busy days when we're too tired to dress up to go out for dinner. My sister-in-law who is a whiz in the kitchen shared a version of this recipe with me, but it was so long ago that the details have become fuzzy. From what I remember, she made it in the microwave oven and it was ready to eat in under 15 minutes.

Lee Kum Kee Chili Black Bean Sauce

For Chinese dishes, I like using Lee Kum Kee sauces. For this recipe, I mixed their Chili Black Bean Sauce with Premium Oyster Sauce and Mirin or rice wine for the sauce. Both the sauces are salted, so no extra salt was required. A sliced onion, minced tomatoes, some sliced garlic and oil combined with the sauce mixture and crab delights were microwaved for 5 minutes, stirred and microwaved for another 2 minutes. This was served over steaming, hot rice for a sumptuous dinner. The leftovers were heated in a skillet the next day for breakfast, a little oil drizzled around the edges and fried with beaten eggs that were left undisturbed to cook without stirring and served garnished with green onions over toast. That's two meals for the price of one package of crab delights.