Lockdown Day 3: Government delivery!
Sunday morning, family Zoom time.
In the middle of the call, I heard a knocking. It was the delivery of groceries from the subdistrict! It came in a Hema/Freshippo bag - did they provide it? The bag and pack of eggs were just placed on my rather dirty doormat.
Here’s the haul. 30 eggs! a head of cabbage. A type of bok choy that’s small and skinny; I think it’s called 鸡毛菜 or chicken feather vegetable. And then there was the regular bok choy. Then there were also garlic sapes, three heads of purple garlic, four potatoes, five red onions, a half kilo of shrimp, and another head of cabbage.
The shrimp were all defrosted. I guess the delivery probably did arrive last night, but they din’t distribute it to the individual apartments until this morning. My friend who lives on the other side of the building was worried if they would be safe to eat, but I was determined to put this treat to good use!
I immediately set about to devein the shrimp. But they only had a vein on the inner side; I later learned that maybe it's not necessary to remove this one?
After deveining and draining, the shrimp still weighed 471g, or exactly 1 pound.
I noticed my neighbor across the alley put her vegetables out on her windowsill. Maybe to air out?
I already had 26 eggs in the fridge, and now with these 30 eggs, I have 56 eggs! How to fit everything in my fridge? The first thing to make was a suggestion from my sister, one of our favorite dishes: 滑蛋虾仁, egg scrambled with shrimp. I followed this video recipe from Chef Wang, who makes the process quite simple. First he blanches the shrimp (I saved the water for chowder stock later), then he adds that to the eggs, along with seasoning, and scallions. And then beats everything together. It all goes into the pan at once. Very streamlined!
I thought it came out quite well, although I think next time I’ll try to cook just a bit less to leave the eggs more moist.
Some stir-fried bok choy and brown rice completed my outdoor lunch.
In the afternoon, I had to do an antigen test. I didn’t have time yet to put away all of my goodies!
This evening, I made a kind of liangmianhuang 两面黄, or noodles pan-fried until crispy, and then topped with shrimp and shredded carrot and the 鸡毛菜 chicken feather bok choy. For the noodles, I used the purple rice noodles I had bought from Costco a long time ago, but never had the chance to each much of.
Today, I heard lots of cooking sounds around the community. I think everyone was maybe also cooking up our new supplies, and maybe in a particular rush to use up the defrosted shrimp!
