XO Sauce with a slight twist.

Click on the video above for a video of the recipe

Why a twist you say? Traditional XO sauce is quite heavy and oily. If you read the book, "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat", you would know oily food times can taste less oily when balance with sweet/acid. My family is Chinese but grew up in Vietnam, so the balancing of complex flavors comes naturally to my parents. 

This is my mother's recipe. She re-hydrates the dried shrimp and scallops with cream sherry for extra flavor. Then balances out the sesame oil by adding sherry vinegar and the magical ingredient....pickled mustard greens. Sometimes even just butter pickles if the mustard greens are not available. You don't taste the pickle because the flavors are already so complex. The vinegar and pickles add sweet/acid to balance out the heavy sesame oil/ salty sea flavor. 

Recipe

Rehydration:
1. 1/2 cup dried shrimp
2. 1/3 cup dried scallops
3. Add 1/2 cream sherry and enough hot water to cover everything. Let sit for at least 4 hours

Process:
1. Add 1 tbs of minced ginger to a food processor
2. 6 cloves garlic
3. Drain shrimp/scallops, add to processor. 
4. 1/2 of a Chinese sausage link.
5. Process until everything is in small chunks. Don't try to puree it, you want the chunks for texture.

Heat:
1. Add enough sesame oil to coat the bottom of the medium sized sauce pan. 
2. Turn on med heat
3. 1 tsp Szechuan peppercorns
4. Add processed scallop/shrimp mixture.
5. Cook until sizzling (~5-6 mins)
6. 3/4 cup more sesame oil (yes we want more)
7. 2 tbs chopped pickled