XO sauce is a spicy salty seafood sauce commonly used in Cantonese cuisine and is also a popular choice of condiment to go with dim sum. Some of the best XO sauces I ever had were from Super Star Seafood Restaurant 鴻星海鮮酒家 in Hong Kong and Rabbit Brand Seafood Delicacies at Circular Road, Singapore. XO sauce is made from dried shrimps, dried scallops, red chilli pepper and spices. It’s an excellent sauce for stir-fries like fried rice, noodles, tofu and seafood because it imparts an umami flavour to dishes which really enhances the taste.
For cooking at home, I like to buy Lee Kum Kee XO Sauce (Regular) from the supermarket (costs about $20 per 220g bottle). It comes with generous bits of dried scallops so it is worth every cent because it’s so easy to whip up different restaurant standard dishes with just one bottle.
Joining Lee Kum Kee’s signature XO sauce line-up is the brand new Seafood XO Sauce (S$14.50 from all leading supermarkets) which is currently only available in Singapore in the whole of South East Asia.
This Chinese New Year, I had received a Chinese New Year Gift Pack courtesy of Lee Kum Kee and in it, there were 5 different LKK products – light soy sauce, oyster sauce, spare ribs sauce, cod fish sauce and the new XO Seafood sauce.
I used the XO sauce to whip up a prawn stir fry dish and my family loved it because the XO sauce was just so tasty.
Stir Fried Prawns with XO Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
(serves 3-4)
12 large-sized prawns, shelled with tails intact
150g sugar snap peas
1 carrot, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 heaped tbsp XO sauce
1 tsp Chinese cooking wine
1/2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp olive oil
Chinese lettuce leaves as garnish (optional)
Instructions
1. Heat oil in pan and saute the garlic till fragrant.
2. Add the sugar snap peas and carrots and briefly stir fry for 30 seconds.
3. Add the prawns, XO sauce and wine and stir fry till the prawns turn opaque.
4. Season with fish sauce and serve atop lettuce leaves if desired.
That’s how easy this stir fry dish is. The XO sauce is so flavoursome and goes really well with the prawns, sugar peas and carrots. I suggest to serve extra XO sauce on the side so you can have it with rice too.
In addition to the in-store Chinese New Year promotions, Lee Kum Kee will also be giving away weekly prizes and cash ang pow to customers.
Here’s what you need to do:
1. Snap a photo related to the theme of “Reunion” with any Lee Kum Kee product
2. Write a caption for the photo
3. Hashtag #LKKReunionSG
4. Upload through Instagram or the LKK website
For more information, please visit http://lkksauce.com/reunion/. This competition will end by 29 February 2016.
* This post is published in collaboration with Lee Kum Kee.