P&Q: shrimp and cellophone noodles

by on January 22, 2013 in problems and questions

After liver, on to shrimp and noodles. Problems or questions, anyone?

Post Author

This post was written by who has written 36 posts on French Fridays with Dorie.

17 Responses to “P&Q: shrimp and cellophone noodles”

  1. MARY January 22, 2013 at 2:39 PM #

    What is everyone substituting for purée?

  2. onewetfoot January 22, 2013 at 4:39 PM #

    I’m just going to make it in the food processor with some organic tomatoes from our food co-op. Not as good as it would be in the summer, but it’ll do in a pinch.

  3. Mardi (eat. live. travel. write.) January 22, 2013 at 6:41 PM #

    I would actually say don’t even use the purée (I found a quality jarred version) because it’s just weird. It’s like an Asian dish trying to be Italian. It was ok, but weird. Leave out the tomatoes and just toss the shrimp and spice mix with the noodles – beautiful (wish I had done this). If you do use the purée, 2 cups is way too much. I only used 1 and a bit and it was positively SWIMMING in sauce.

    • saralkeefe81 January 22, 2013 at 7:03 PM #

      Interesting. Wish I’d read this before buying the puree today! I thought it was a strange ingredient for this. I might just do as you suggest now!

    • Cher January 22, 2013 at 7:34 PM #

      I emphatically ditto what Mardi said – I used 2 cups of a higher end organic brand and it just ended up being out of place (at least for my tastes). A few tablespoons of tomato puree may have worked better.

      Very curious to hear how the flavor profile worked for others.

  4. Elaine January 22, 2013 at 9:34 PM #

    I double ditto (is that such a thing?!) what Mardi and Cher said. I made this yesterday and luckily only made half. I felt the same as Mardi that it was an Asian dish trying to be Italian. Just didn’t work.

  5. onewetfoot January 23, 2013 at 12:01 AM #

    Having read all the comments, I’m going to follow Mardi’s suggestion and eliminate the tomato purée. Thanks for the warning!

  6. KarenP January 23, 2013 at 12:12 AM #

    Hmmm… I had been having trouble picturing how the tomato purée would work. Maybe I’ll have to experiment with it. Thanks for the warnings!

  7. rosa January 23, 2013 at 3:18 AM #

    Yep, 2 cups was way too much puree. I almost wonder if it was a typo? Wish I’d read these comments before I made the dish.

  8. saralkeefe81 January 23, 2013 at 10:29 AM #

    I was talking to my husband about this dish, and he says he has had a Chinese dish with tomato puree in it (while living in Japan), and he agreed with the idea to leave it out. Apparently, he wasn’t that impressed with it. I did some online research, and there are some Chinese-style recipes for chicken and tomato dishes, so maybe that’s the influence. I still think I’m going to either scale back the amount of puree or just leave it out altogether. Depends on my mood tonight when I make it!

  9. alwaysaddmorebutter January 23, 2013 at 2:02 PM #

    I made it the other night with the tomato and I liked it. I didn’t have puree though, I just diluted some paste and probably didn’t use a whole two cups. I thought the cilantro really brightened things up and the five spice powder lent it such an interesting flavor. It was my first time using five spice though so maybe I was just kind of enamored of the whole event.

  10. Create Amazing Meals January 23, 2013 at 6:31 PM #

    Thanks for all these suggestions – I wondered about the tomatoes, too.

    I was having trouble finding cellophane or glass noodles, but a quick internet search let me know Bean Thread noodles were the same thing,. Whew!

  11. Miss Kris Kitchen January 24, 2013 at 5:17 AM #

    I think the idea is to give another traditional Asian flavor. There is the hot spice, the salty, to taste, the Chinese spices, and with the cilantro there should probably be lime juice creating a “sour” and with the sugar comes the tomato which should be more like 2 Tablespoons rather than cups, for the “sweet.” The lime is also necessary to counter the salty, which is not really common in many traditional Chinese foods. All my opinion. But, I think the 2 cups is either a typo or is truly a new recipe!…well, Dorie does say it is for an all-orange meal. I asked my Asian family members and they say it’s not Chinese….not even “remotely” Chinese to have all that tomato puree and to not use it as a sweet-and-sour sauce…and needs vinegar or??? And that’s a lot of sweet and sour sauce for this recipe!

  12. AmyA January 24, 2013 at 12:24 PM #

    Ahhh, Kris — you nailed it! Lime or vinegar — yes, the dish needed more acid. I whole heartedly agree w/y’all about the tomatoes. I used an organic jarred product, about 1/2 the amount called for because I just didn’t trust it and I didn’t want to ruin the beautiful shrimp! Not a big fan. I served this dish w/chicken satay and a peanut sauce that needed to be eaten — it was tasty together. But that tells me that this shrimp and cellophane noodle recipe needs some enhancing to be “stand alone”.

    I tried to halve the recipe, but was multi-tasking and not really paying attention, so…ended up with 1c. tomato, 1/2 lb shrimp and the recipe amount of noodles and seasonings. Love the 5 spice and will def. use that in stir fry again!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Shrimp & Cellophane Noodles | From Scratch - January 25, 2013

    [...] a  chicken version for my husband and the shrimp version for myself.  Then I checked out the P & Q section on the FFWD site.  Pretty much everyone who had already made the recipe said there was way too [...]
  2. FFWD – Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles | One Wet Foot - January 26, 2013

    [...] to have made this week’s recipe, but I’m certainly not alone in this. Once again, our Problems & Questions thread was very busy and this week’s subject was tomato purée. Those who’d made the [...]

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.