Silky Shrimp & Eggs (Xia Ren Hua Dan)

The story

Hua dan means "slippery eggs" — cooked to just-set ribbons, the Cantonese texture that separates home cooks from restaurant woks. The trick is brining frozen shrimp 15 minutes, which is barely a step at all.

Ingredients (5 + pantry staples)

• Frozen peeled shrimp — 8 oz / 225 g, thawed
• Eggs — 4, beaten with 1 tbsp water
• Scallions — 2, sliced
• Salt — 1 tsp (for brining)
• Toasted sesame oil — 1 tsp

Pantry staples used (don't count toward the 6): white pepper, cooking oil. Not stocked yet? See the pantry page.

Steps

1. Brine shrimp in 1 cup cold water + 1 tsp salt for 15 minutes (while you beat eggs). Drain, pat dry.
2. Fry shrimp 1–2 minutes until just pink; pour in the eggs over medium-low and fold gently 2–3 minutes — take them off when they still look 10% wet.
3. Scallions, sesame oil, white pepper. Serve over rice.

Swaps

No shrimp? This is exactly how Cantonese cooks do plain eggs anyway — same technique with sliced scallions only.