Peeled and deveined shrimps and pechay are cooked in sauteed shallot, garlic, tomatoes, ginger and fish sauce with a bit of sugar for balance. Easy, quick and delightful.
I harvested a bunch of pechay from our garden and, hence, this dish. I cooked it for my daughter, Sam, who eats no mammals.
What is pechay?
It is a type of Chinese cabbage that’s used widely in Filipino cooking. The scientific name is Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis, the same category where bok choy belongs. I know that there are so many varieties of Chinese cabbage but think of it this way:
If bok choy has light green stalks, pechay has white stalks that are thinner than bok choy stalks. If you’ve seen bok choy with white stalks and curly leaves, pechay’s stalks are thinner and the leaves aren’t curly.
Is pechay a must in this recipe? Not really. As mentioned earlier, I harvested pechay from our garden and that was what I used to cook this dish. If pechay is not available, you may substitute other Chinese cabbage varieties. Even white cabbage will do although the cooking time will be a little longer.
What is guisado?
It’s the Filipino word for sauteed. It encompasses a wide array of dishes cooked with a spice base created during the first stage of cooking.
What the spice base is depends on the dish. The most common is a combination of garlic, shallots and tomatoes. For this dish, the spice base includes all three plus ginger.
Shrimps and Pechay Guisado
Recipe by
Ingredients
- 12 to 14 large shrimps peeled and deveined
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1 shallot peeled and thinly sliced
- 8 cherry tomatoes halved (see notes after the recipe)
- ½ teaspoon chopped garlic
- ½ teaspoon grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce you may need more
- 10 to 12 pechay leaves (with the stalks)
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Place the shrimps between stacks of paper towels and press down lightly to remove excess moisture.
- Cut the pechay into one-inch slices; separate the stalks from the leafy portions.
- Heat the cooking oil in a pan.
- Saute the shallot, tomatoes, garlic and ginger with half of the fish sauce and half of the pepper until the vegetables are just starting to soften.
- Add the pechay stalks (they take longer to cook than the shrimps) and continue sauteeing for a minute.
- Spread the shrimps in the pan and cook without moving them for a minute.
- Drizzle in the rest of the fish sauce, sprinkle in the rest of the pepper and all of the sugar.
- Stir the contents of the pan and cook until the shrimps have almost completely changed color.
- Add the pechay leaves to the shrimps. Cook, tossing, until the leaves are wilted.
- Taste and adjust the seasonings, if needed.
- Serve your shrimps and pechay guisado immediately.
