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Udang Goreng Mentega (Shrimps Cooked in Butter Sauce)

And so passed the Chinese New Year. 祝你在新的一年里龙马精神. I hope you are also full of energy and everything goes well for you in this new year.

My family and I celebrated with a simple meesuah dish as it is the tradition in my husband's family to eat meesuah during Chinese New Year. So what'd happen is, we'd spend the entire day visiting relatives, eating bowls and bowls of meesuah from one place to another.
It's hard to describe the sensation you feel after that.

You can find my recipe for the mee suah that I made here. I post daily recipes on my Instagram account, so feel free to follow me here. I hope you'd do that :).

Anyways, for this next recipe, in Indonesia you'd find this dish in any Chinese restaurant. But peculiarly enough, when you go to China, you will not find this dish (as conveyed by my husband who has visited many times). Even in Singapore, we don't find this dish in the Chinese restaurants also. So, I think it's save to say that this is an Indonesian dish, created by hua ren in Indonesia.

http://the-dewi.blogspot.sg/

Udang goreng mentega, is one of Indonesian people's favorite dish. Typically found in road side seafood stalls, which is world famous by the way :P. The taste is usually light, fresh, and very shrimp-ey in a good way of course. It is one of the most ordered dishes in those seafood stalls, next to the boiled cockles, muscles and what not.

The recipe to make this dish, is quite simple, just like the appearance of the dish itself. So, here we go (complete recipe for this dish can be found in the bottom of this post).


The shrimps that are usually used in this recipe is the unpeeled shrimps, complete with the head, and everything wonderful stored in it, still attached. But this time, I'm working with peeled shrimps because that is what I currently have on hand right now. However, I recommend getting the unpeeled ones.


Shrimps and garlic go so so well together, a wonderful pair, as I'm sure you probably already know. I also add young ginger here to 'wash' away the fishiness from the shrimp. It also adds a pleasant aromatic taste to the dish. Though I don't really care for ginger, but here I think it's necessary, so that's why I'm using it anyway. You can certainly add more ginger than the one stated in this recipe if you'd like to. These garlic and young ginger are minced finely.


I'm also using onion and green onion. The onion is sliced, no need to mince it, as slicing them is aesthetically appealing. At least that's what I think, my appetite seems to increase when I see sliced onion in a dish. It's a thing for me.

The green onion is going to be included last, so it would still look fresh. However, I divided the green onion into two parts here: the white part and the green leaves part. The white part goes first, and the green part will be included at the very last stage.


Since this recipe is shrimps cooked in butter sauce, of course we're going to need some butter as well. I used unsalted butter here. But, I have to inform you that in Indonesia, mostly we use margarine instead of butter. For me though, I like butter, it adds that dairy quality to the dish somehow, and I like having that fragrance in my food.

So, butter is fine, margarine is also fine. Make sure to add a little bit of oil first to prevent the butter from burning.


This sauce is called kecap inggris, and I got it from Indonesia. I think taste wise it is similar to Worcestershire sauce, but kecap inggris' consistency is more watery. If you can get your hands on this sauce, that'd be wonderful, but if not Worcestershire sauce is fine too.


Another sauce that is typically Indonesian that is being used here is kecap manis. Bango is my favorite brand. To me, it's just more savory than other brands. Make sure you get the Indonesian kecap manis, even though it's under a different brand. Because Malaysia also has their own kecap manis, well kicap manis is what they call it I think. but the taste is a bit different.

Now, let's start cooking.

1. Mince garlic and ginger finely. Visible bits should be okay, no need for them to be too small, but make sure they are of the same size, so they'd cook evenly. Thinly slice the onion, and for the green onion, I slice them to around 10 cm pieces.

2. So now, we're ready to cook. Heat the butter with a little bit of oil to prevent it from burning. Burnt butter does not taste or look pleasing, so we don't want that.

3. Once the butter starts to melt and the white bubbles begin to disappear, toss in the garlic, ginger and onion together, stir fry until they are  starting to smell fragrant. This is done under medium high heat. Be careful not to burn them.

4. Pour in the kecap inggris and kecap manis and let it simmer under medium low heat. It is up to you as to how much sauce you want to make for this dish (because eating the sauce with rice is truly fantastic), but make sure the proportion is how it should.

5. When the sauce is simmering and the taste of all the herbs are infused, toss in the shrimps and the white part of the green onion. Turn up the heat to medium high again.

6. For this portion, I'd say cooking the shrimps for 3-4 minutes is enough. What you want is for the shrimps to curl up, the colors to change entirely and the flesh starts to become firm. Be careful not to overcook the shrimps because that will not taste nice either. Just when the colors stop changing and the flesh has uniformly firmed up, add another 30 seconds to it, and immediately turn off the heat.
For the most part, deciding when to stop cooking the shrimps takes experience, but I try to give as close a pointer as best I could, I hope it works for you. If not, practice makes perfect :).

7. When you see the shrimps are almost ready, toss in the green part of the green onion. Cook for about 15 seconds until it starts to wilt and you're done.


Here's what it's supposed to look like, well with peeled shrimps at least.

I have also prepared a video for you, I hope you find it useful. If so, please subscribe :D.


Here's the complete recipe for Udang Goreng Mentega (Shrimps Cooked in Butter Sauce):

300 gr shrimps
2 tbsp butter
A little bit of vegetable oil

7 cloves garlic
1 cm ginger
3/4 onion
1 stalk green onion

3 parts kecap Inggris
5 parts kecap manis


Comments

  1. Dewii kamu pinter masak yaaa.. pengen aku cobain ini udangnya hehehe...
    resepnya kayanya gampang mau coba ah :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Waahhh masih jauh kok ilmunya Bon. Iya yang ini gampang. Resep-resep yang ditampilkan di sini insyAllah selalu yang gampang hehehe. Jangan lupa dicicip dulu saosnya sebelum nyemplungin udangnya ya. Kalau udah cocok di lidah, baru masukin udang. Selamat mencoba :)

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