Shrimp is a famous specialty snack in Yichang, Hubei Province, which is soft, waxy, smooth, cool and delicious. It is cooked with rice flour, and it is leaked into a cold water basin with a colander to form small pieces. Its shape is big and thin, and it looks like shrimp. Then it is fished out and eaten in brown sugar water, so it is called cool shrimp.

Shrimp is a dessert to relieve summer heat. It is not only simple to make, but also tastes very good, tender and refreshing, with a strong Q, and it tastes sweet but not greasy when eaten in the mouth. It is cool to relieve summer heat and relieve hunger, just like I liked it after eating it once. It is really delicious.

At present, cold shrimp is still the most authentic food in Hubei, and of course, the practices in different places are similar, but the basic processes and techniques are the same. My family will eat it once every three to five in summer. Here are some of my little experiences.

1. Prepare raw materials (rice noodles and limewater)

1. Prepare rice noodles (also called sticky rice noodles)

The main raw materials of cold shrimp are rice noodles.

if you make it yourself, do this: take a proper amount of rice and soak it in clear water, which usually takes about 1 hours (we can soak it at night and make it the next day). The soaked rice will break when you knead it with your hands, and it will be fine.

2. Prepare limewater

① Why use limewater: Adding clear limewater to the cold shrimp is mainly used to make the rice slurry coagulate and smooth, increase the natural fragrance and sweetness of the cold shrimp, make the taste of the cold shrimp richer, and change its properties, so that it becomes alkaline from acidity and healthy food with low calories from noodles.

② making limewater: pour the quicklime powder into clear water and stir evenly to make it clear for later use. The best ratio of quicklime powder to water is 1: 7. This ratio is particularly important. If the water is less, the final product will not be shaped and the taste will be bad, and if the water is more, the finished product will not be strong and will not bounce, which will also affect the taste, so this ratio should be mastered.

second, making rice slurry

pour the soaked rice into the wall-breaking machine, add a proper amount of water and grind it into rice slurry. However, it should be noted here that it must be ground very finely, without any slag at all, and then the large particles are filtered out with a fine gong, otherwise it will affect the taste of the final product.

if you buy finished rice noodles, just add the same amount of clean water and stir it evenly, which is more convenient, and there is no granular slag, which is also a very good choice.

3. Making cold shrimp

Pour the beaten rice slurry into the pot, add the clarified limewater, and keep stirring in one direction. On the one hand, the rice slurry will be heated evenly, and on the other hand, it will prevent the bottom of the pot from being pasted. Be sure to stir quickly and continuously, and the rice paste will slowly change from thin to thick, and then from thick to thin when it is almost ready. At this time, use a small fire until the rice paste becomes transparent, drop by drop into the water, and it will solidify immediately, so you can turn off the heat and cook.

at this time, pour the hot rice paste into the colander special for cool shrimp, and catch the bottom of the colander with a basin filled with cold water. Use gravity to make the rice paste slowly leak out, drop it into cold water and solidify. If the rice paste does not leak out, squeeze the rice paste with a spoon to make the rice paste completely leak out.

let the cool shrimp soak in cold water for a while, and after 1 minutes, put the cool shrimp in the refrigerator for later use. At this point, the cool shrimp is finished.

Fourth, eat cold shrimp

Finally, eat cold shrimp, which is usually eaten in brown sugar water. The brown sugar water can be prepared in advance, put in the refrigerator and poured out when eating, which will make it more refreshing. There is no fixed proportion of brown sugar water, so it can be made according to your own preferences. If you want to eat dessert, put more brown sugar, otherwise put less.

Of course, my family sometimes eats salty cold shrimp, that is, I make a sauce (the sauce is also random, and my family usually uses broth as the base soup, and then adds the soup made of mushrooms, minced meat, ginger slices, chicken essence, soy sauce, oyster sauce, etc.), pours it on the cold shrimp, and adds some soy sauce, chopped green onion, sesame oil, etc., so it tastes special, haha.

summary: the above are some of my family's experiences in making cold shrimp, including the most classic way of making it in Hubei, and the way of adding our own innovation. When you make it, you can make it according to this idea, and the main process should not be changed. The eating method is more casual. After all, everyone has different tastes and preferences.