Sweet and Salty Shrimp Rice Bowl

Food, like music, is infinitely adaptable. Take a recipe--add a little of this, take away a little of that and you've got an entirely new riff on a dependable classic, sort of like the blues version of Mary Had a Little Lamb. This dish is a bit like that. Throw in a little honey here, a little fish sauce there, add some kale and cook it down and voila! You've got yourself a delicious, simple, healthy (and cheap) weeknight meal.

This recipe was adapted from Heidi's Shichimi Rice Bowl over at 101 Cookbooks. But where she used tofu, I used shrimp and where she did a simple pan-fry of her ingredients I figured hey, there's nothing here that some delightfully pungent fish sauce can't help. So in it went. The recipe below is more of an outline of what I did and you can feel free to follow it to a T or to make your own improvisations according to your tastes. If you don't have or don't particularly like fish sauce as much as I do, I'd recommend using something like low-sodium soy sauce or hoisin. I also actually didn't salt my rice since I knew that the salt from the fish sauce would be enough to flavor everything. I will, however, certainly recommend using some combination of kale, mushroom and protein of your choice--I was amazed at how well those flavors went together. It was like a great dinner conversation. Everyone had a different perspective, but they were all beautifully complimentary.

Sweet and Salty Shrimp Rice Bowl (Adapted from 101 Cookbooks)
(Serves 2)

1 pound uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined, with a sprinkling of salt
I bunch kale, leaves chopped and rinsed
1/2 pound mushrooms, such as white button or shiitake, sliced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly chopped
2 T honey
2T fish sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce (optional)
3 T olive oil
1 T butter
roughly 2 T scallions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Brown rice for serving (cooked according to your favorite method)

Shrimp: First, cook your prepared shrimp in a frying pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1/3 of the chopped garlic. Cook just until the shrimp is pink, turning once to cook the other side. Remove and reserve for later.

Mushrooms: Melt 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add 1 tablespoon of the fish sauce to the frying pan, with 1 tablespoon honey and 1 tsp oyster sauce (if using). Once butter and oil is hot, spread mushrooms out over the pan in a single layer. Don't crowd--work in batches if need be. Once mushrooms are browned, flip them over to the other side and brown them completely. Remove once finished.

Kale: Heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over the pan. Toss in half of the scallions and the remaining chopped garlic. Once the garlic and scallions are fragrant, add the remaining tablespoon of fish sauce. Add the chopped kale to the pan, tossing so that the leaves are all coated in the sauce. Cook until the kale is wilted (you don't want it to be so wilted that it looks like completely cooked spinach--a little crunch is still acceptable). Remove and reserve.

To Finish: Heat remaining tablespoon of honey in the pan with any accumulated juices from the mushrooms. Toss in shrimp just to coat and heat  back up. Once done, assemble the bowl. Put in a scoop of rice, then half the kale in a third of the bowl, half the shrimp in another third of a bowl and then add half the mushrooms over the top of everything. Top with remaining sliced scallions and serve.

Enjoy!