It seems rather bizarre that my grocery list for this week’s French Friday with Dorie recipe had me scrambling for cellophane noodles, Chinese tree ear mushrooms, Asian toasted sesame oil and Chinese five-spice powder. Ms. Greenspan even urged us to pull out our woks.
Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles is this week’s French Friday with Dorie’s recipe choice.
I wonder if Joel Robuchon, Alain Ducasse or Guy Savoy even own woks? I spent hours in Julia’s kitchen at the American History Museum at the Smithsonian. Cannot remember a wok. That’s why I love Dorie – she crawls out on a limb, never glances back and successfully coaxes us along.
This week, Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles is the FFWD recipe choice. If you’ll remember, early last year I joined Wok Wednesdays, a group that cooks from Grace Young’s cookbook, Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge. Although the food was delicious, I was a Wednesday wonk. To my mind, wok cooking is a mad dash to the finish. I enjoy the prep but having to make it all happen so quickly, for a tasty result, makes me crazy.
A small, finely chopped onion is the first ingredient for the heated wok. Cook for only a minute until it’s translucent.
But, for the sake of Dorie, I made friends with my banished wok, tossed together a batch of Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles and washed it down with a bottle of Tsingtao. Well, maybe two bottles.
Now it’s time for the rehydrated mushrooms and garlic. Cook for another 30 seconds.
Truthfully, perhaps the French should leave these one-dish wok meals to the Asians. The soft, slippery noodles mixed with Asian toasted sesame oil could have stood alone. They were delicious. Who doesn’t love ginger, cloves, cinnamon, pepper and star anise blended together into aromatic Chinese five-spice powder? That spice, along with a few other ingredients, helped the shrimp be mighty tasty.
Turn up the heat and add the shrimp to the pan.
Then along came the two cups of tomato puree. Say, what? Even the second bottle of beer couldn’t make that combination work for me. Je suis désolée, Dorie, but this week’s recipe gets a thumb down from this household. (A first for me.)
While this week’s recipe might not have been successful, the week was. I wasn’t sold on Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles à la français, but I was deliriously happy to hang a SOLD sign on my Nevada house. Yep, this week I signed, sealed and delivered my Henderson house to a happy buyer and will be moving back to Aspen, to live full-time, by early Spring.
After the shrimp is added, quickly add the spice mixture and then season with salt and pepper. Thirty seconds later, dump in 2 cups of tomato puree (purposely not pictured). NOTE: All this is accomplished in 3-4 minutes. Do you see why wokking makes me SO nervous? To move this quickly in the kitchen, I need Xanax.
Aspen has been our home since 1988 and, during this year of healing, adjustment and change as well as those that follow, it’s where I want to be. After being in Henderson eight years, I will be leaving wonderful friends, but there’s not a one of them who isn’t, for my sake, happy to see me Colorado-bound.
I hope my colleagues had a better experience with this recipe than I. Go here to see another point of view. Next week we’re doing a vegetable combo “en papillote”. Sounds good. The French being French.
Hi Mary, I decided to get a little educated when I read “2 Cups tomato” as a stir fry ingredient…I used most of Dorie’s ingredients, added a few of my own, left out anything tomato, and came up with a not-stir-fry…and it was delicious. Your stir fry does look “orange” and it actually does look tasty, but it just looks like a typo or a bad-Dorie-day in the ingredient list. Congrats on your NV house sale…so happy for you. In this economy and especially in NV or AZ if one can sell a house when needed…well, you are fortunate and good for you! Colorado is lucky to get you full time. I know you’ve had some very hard times, hopefully 2013 will be a good year for you!!! I’m glad I found your post a bit early…I hoped to see this recipe after going a bit rogue…and I have confirmed my thoughts. Thanks.
Yeah this was weird. Just plain weird. Right up until the tomatoes it was sounding and smelling good. I didn’t add the full amount of tomatoes and it was still way too much. Weird.
Mary, I left the tomato sauce out… I couldn’t bear the thought of it in what are essentially Chinese-inspired flavors! Your dish looks great, by the way 😉
Congratulations on selling the house… I am so happy to see that others nixed the tomato. It is really a wonderful dish without it. I sprinkled hot chili sauce on mine…excellent.
I have to say, once you mentioned to tomato the tomato purée, I actually flinched. I have enjoyed many of the recipes you have made (particularly the Chicken Liver Gateaux) but this one just did not make sense. It appears your fellow cooks did not like it either. Oh well, the experiment is always fun. I can just picture you standing there cracking open your second beer! I will miss you so much but congratulations on the sale of your house. I know you will be happy to be back in Aspen.
Congratulations on the sale of your house, Mary! Wishing you all good things ahead! I am making this dish tonight, and after reading all your reviews I am leaving out the tomato sauce. However, it does look good!
Congratulations on selling your house!
We couldn’t get onboard with this one, either…we really wanted to like it, but those noddles were just too weird! I picked out the shrimp which were very good.
Oh Mary! Congratulations on selling the house in NV. Yea for you.
Yes, this was bizarre – my blind faith caused me to add the two cups of puree – I will post tonight some time. Oi. Maybe if I had two beers, I would have been wiser.
I wanted so badly to like this one too…
This was such a weird experience. We ended up liking the shrimp and mushrooms, but maybe that’s because I mightily reduced the tomato addition. Two tablespoons was okay. The cellophane noodles were what didn’t work for me. I guess I’m too used to thick Japanese noodles. Good try, though! And congrats on the house!
Congratulations on your selling your house Mary!
I’m so sorry you added the tomato purée, it was really good without it. I checked the FFWD P&Q s and read that nobody liked the tomato sauce so I thankfully didn’t add it to my yummy shrimp dish when I made it today. I would make it again exactly the same way just leave out the tomato sauce …really it’s yummy!
Have a great weekend;-)
I havent made mine yet or looked at the ingredients so tre weird indeed! Good for you on the sale!! I can reelate bout leaving friends behind! We have entered our last 30 days in England and boy am I not thrilled!
You know how I feel about Aspen…the perfect spot for healing and living! The tomato sauce gave me pause, too…I just couldn’t do it. I drained a can of chopped tomatoes and used them instead. It was good…but not worth repeating.
Glad we weren’t the only ones who were confused by this one. Not to mention that ours was definitely not orange!
Congrats on selling your house Mary! That’s so exciting! Sorry this one didn’t work out – wok cooking makes me nervous too! Everything happening way too fast with no time to go back and read what I’m supposed to be doing. Not my favorite, but I didn’t totally hate it.
It seems nobody liked the tomato sauce and few liked this recipe. Me, not being a shrimp eater (allergies) I simply skipped it. That´s two in a row so next month I need to be spot on with all recipes! I´m so happy for you Mary, for things moving along smoothly. Let´s hope you get settled soon and we finally meet!
I know what you mean about wok cooking … you have to have everything prepped and you almost have to memorize the recipe so you don’t mess it up! Personally, I liked this recipe (minus the majority of the tomato puree!). I also used a different mushroom because I couldn’t find the tree ear ones. Hopefully, everyone will be back to being happy with the recipe next week! Congrats on selling your house!!
I don’t know what Dorie was thinking with this one. It was a flop for me too. Seems like most of us didn’t enjoy it. Oh, well… Didn’t you love Julia’s kitchen at the Smithsonian? Congratulations on selling your house and being Colorado-bound!
Yep! he puree killed it. Up until then it smelled soooo good and would have tasted wonderful. Except for the puree….
Congrats on your upcoming changes!!
Mary, it is wonderful to read that you have sold your house – congratulations!
This week´s recipe does not seem to be making a lot of re-appearances in the kitchens of the Doristas who prepeared this recipe and I cannot say that I really made this dish because I ended up taking so many liberties with the original recipe… but I must say that your Shrimp & Cellophane Noodles really does look very appetizing, even if you did not really care for the way it tasted – there are so many wonderful recipes coming up and I am really looking forward to the coming weeks.
Have a great weekend! Greetings from cold and snowy Bonn!
Congratulations on the sale, Mary! I know there’s a lot of work ahead (having just helped my parents downsize from five acres to a suburban bungalow), but I’m glad you’re going to be able to be where you need to be full time.
The P&Q discussion saved the day for me with this week’s recipe. I skipped the tomato and made a couple of other changes. We ended up enjoying the results.
I forgot to mention that your dishes are lovely and set off the stirfry (successful or not) perfectly!
You may have not liked this dish Mary (it doesn’t honestly sound that good to me either, …….. tomatoes??) but I LOVE your blue and white dishes. Can I borrow them sometime?
Congrats on the sale of your house. It’s always a happy day to see that SOLD sign!
Your photos are great even if this was not a good dish at all. But, congratulations on the sale of your house! Good news trumps bad food any day!
That is one unfortunate dish. Appreciate your honesty.
Best wishes on your move back to Aspen. May you find peace and much happiness at 8000 ft.!
LL
Hi, Mary. I am sorry that I am behind on commenting. I am still having some problems with my eyesight and have to limit my time on the computer. I am happy for you that you made the decision to make Aspen your home, but I am sure you will see your Nevada friends often. You made this dish look so beautiful and delicious!