Asparagus with Scallops Stir Fry from Made with Lau.
I had a large bag of carrots and googled “Chinese carrot recipe” hoping for a new way to prepare them. Dad’s Stir Fry Carrots was the top hit. It’s on Made with Lau, a two-time James Beard Award winner which shares the skills of a Chinese restaurant chef with 50 years experience. Though I am usually a reader vs watcher, I was drawn in by the freeze frame of the video in which Daddy Lau is brandishing a giant carrot with the caption “OUR KIDS LOVE THIS”.
The videos are the main draw of Made with Lau, presenting recipe prep and technique in subtitled Cantonese with occasional English interjections from his son who is his documentarian and #1 fan. In Dad’s Stir Fry Carrots, for example, you’ll learn the proper way to de-string snow peas and the trick for cutting your carrot slices into flower shapes. The ingredient list for this was a little daunting so I went for Dad’s Scallops and Asparagus Stir Fry; early asparagus is on sale now and I have scallops in my freezer.
Daddy Lau cooks with grandkid.
In this video, Daddy Lau is preparing the dish for his grandkid’s first birthday, with the little one in a high chair just behind him and occasionally reaching out as Lau chops and stir fries just inches away. Viewers expressed concern about the child’s safety, but she evidently made it through the experience with everyone singing happy birthday at the end. Okay, let’s try this at home.
Cantonese cuisine is known for its respect for fresh vegetables, which means even the simplest recipe can be time consuming on a one-off basis. Scallops must be blanched with cooking wine, asparagus is soaked then blanched with oil (along with a few carrots, on a slightly different timetable) and the wok must be smoking hot, with the flame then reduced to medium to stir fry the aromatics without burning (another tip), then returning to high heat as vegetables are added. Of course, this process would be trivial with a lot of practice and a mise en place of precut veggies.
My result is at the top… not as pretty as Daddy Lau’s but a treat regardless, with the flavors of the scallops and the asparagus blending just as designed. I highly recommend you check out Made with Lau.
