Shrimp and Broccoli Stir Fry

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Whenever I'm looking for a quick meal, I turn to stir fries because everything comes together very quickly. This shrimp and broccoli stir fry is both healthy and easy to make. Just make sure that you have all the ingredients prepped before cooking, (cleaned shrimp, blanched broccoli, chopped garlic and cornstarch slurry), because once the stir frying starts, everything happens really fast.

There's also something unusual in this recipe.

A shrimp salt massage!!!

A long time ago, my mom taught me her secret to getting the shrimp texture to be firm and "crunchy". You have to massage the shrimp with some salt, and then let it sit for a few minutes before rinsing off the salt. This tightens up the shrimp to give it that restaurant style firm bite. I treat my shrimp to a massage all the time and it comes out with that great "crunchy bite" each time.

Yields 4 servings

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb broccoli crowns trimmed and cut to bite size florets
  • ¾ lb raw shrimp, shells removed and deveined
  • 3 cloves garlic chopped

Corn starch slurry ingredients:

  • 1 t corn starch
  • 1 t soy sauce
  • ½ t sugar
  • ¼ t pepper
  • ½ t salt
  • ½ c water

Procedures:

  1.  Defrost, clean shrimp by removing shells and vein. Massage shrimp with 1 t salt for about 2 min in a bowl; then let sit for 5 min. (Shrimp gets foamy during the massage.) Rinse shrimp several times with cold water, drain, and set aside. [NOTE: Defrost shrimp by soaking the frozen shrimp in a large bowl of cold water for 30 minutes to 1 hour. (This will also help to remove most of the sodium triphosphate if you were unfortunate enough to accidentally not read the ingredients carefully and buy frozen shrimp that has the additive.)]
  2. In a separate small bowl, make a slurry with the cornstarch, soy sauce, sugar, pepper, salt, and water. Set aside.
  3. Blanch broccoli in a pot of boiling water. Drain and set aside.
  4. To a nonstick pan, heat 1 T oil. Add shrimp to pan in a single layer and let cook for 30 seconds. Then add chopped garlic and stir to mix for 30 seconds.
  5. Add the blanched broccoli to the pan and stir fry for 30 seconds.
  6. Pour in cornstarch slurry and stir fry for about 1 to 2 minutes until cornstarch mixture thickens and shrimp is cooked and broccoli is tender. Serve hot.