a couple of shrimp dishes

I haven't bought farmed shrimps for close to a decade now. I used to buy them back when they were not as widely raised. In recently years I only buy wild sea shrimps - US gulf shrimps. Need to say when you go out to eat, more often than not the shrimps are farmed, except in the high end places where the shrimps are the highlight of the dish.
In the shopping trip a few days ago, I broke the rule and bought some farmed shrimps. I wanted to make a dish similar to the crystal shrimp that I had in a Shanghai restaurant in Toronto a few months ago. Unlike most dishes with shrimp, this dish is unique that there is nothing else but the shrimps. The shrimp should taste slightly crunchy, mildly seasoned, and light. This dish uses relatively small shrimps, and is served with a small of rice vinegar on the side.

crystal shrimps I had in a Shanghai restaurant in Toronto

I bought these shrimps also because they look almost decent

when I started peeling them I cannot help but to notice the amount of water that was sprayed onto them during the freezing process - to cheat you on weight; you can see the glaze of ice in the above photo

the secret of achieving the crunchy texture of shrimp is to lightly rub them with plenty of salt first, let sit, and then rinse with cold water to remove the excessive salt and pet dry; the ones in the photo has gone through the process and has been seasoned and ready to be cooked

As these shrimps are much larger, they don't lend themselves to the crystal shrimp dish. I just want to approximate, so I whipped up this dish with some yellow chives. Crystal shrimp is not stir fried. Instead the shrimp is poached in oil so they are cooked evenly but not seared as the outside would if you stir fry them. Since doing the proper technique required quite a bit of oil, and steps that are more suitable to a restaurant rather than home cooking I elected to stir fry them in generous amount of oil.

this is one with yellow chives

As I still have plenty of shrimps left, I made this dish the next day, this time with young Chinese choy sum (a relative of rape seed plant)

Next time I come across smaller farmed shrimps I might give the crystal shrimp dish a try by poaching them in oil first before the final seasoning.