Recipe - Braised Chinese Lettuce And Dried Shrimp

8 (up to)
10 Dried shrimp
4 Dried black mushrooms
1 pound Chinese lettuce
6 cup Water
2 tablespoon Oil
One half teaspoon Salt
1 cup Mushroomsoaking liquid
2 tablespoon Soy sauce
1 teaspoon Sugar

1. Separately soak dried shrimp and dried mushrooms. Reserve
mushroomsoaking liquid.

2. Cut lettuce in 2inch cubes. Bring water to a boil. Blanch lettuce 1 to
2 minutes, then drain.

3. Heat oil. Add shrimp and stirfrv 2 minutes. Add lettuce; stirfry to
coat with oil. Then sprlnkle with salt.

4. Add mushroom liquid. Bring to boil; then simmer, covered, 10 minutes.

5. Add soaked mushrooms, soy sauce and sugar. Simmer, covered, 10 minutes
more. VARIATIONS:

1. In step 3, after stirfrying the lettuce, add 1/8 cup bamboo shoots,
cut or sliced up ; stirfry 1 minute more. Then sprinkle with salt.

2. In step 5, also add 1 sweet red pepper, cut or sliced up or minced .

3. After step 5, thicken sauce with a cornstarch paste made of 1/2
tablespoon cornstarch and 2 tablespoons cold water.

From The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook, ISBN 0517658704. Downloaded
from Glen's MM Recipe Archive, http://www.erols.com/hosey.