This is one of those recipes that are completely inauthentic that you recreate via taste memory. I once ate a fantastic shrimp dish with kaffir lime leaves in a restaurant in Singapore and, for some reason, its memory came to me the other night as I was thinking about a dinner of shrimp and I attempted -- pretty darn successfully -- to recreate it.
I served this over rice, with a salad of cucumber and daikon radish with fresh coriander and mint, but I would make this again on its own, in large quantities, as an appetizer for friends. Made with shell-on shrimp, this is a dish to make for good enough friends so that one could unabashedly suck the sauce out of every crevasse of the shell and lick ones fingers.
I happened to have a bag of Kaffir lime leaves in the freezer so used them in this dish to add a floral note but you could do without of you don't happen to have them. This would still be a really delicious, moreish dish, without floral back notes.
1 portion of shrimp (mine is seven but I could have eaten about ten more this was so delicious; portion size is very much based on appetite so up to you)
1/4 cup chili sauce
2 tsps balsamic vinegar
1 tsp white wine
2 tsps chopped green onion
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 medium sized kaffir lime leaf, central rib removed and sliced very finely
1 tsp vegetable oil
Sriracha sauce to taste
Salt to taste
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat, along with the grated ginger, the kaffir lime leaf and the chopped green onion. Cook for about a minute, stirring constantly, until the mixture is fragrant and the onion pieces are getting a little brown around the edges.
Toss in the shrimp and salt lightly. Cook for about two minutes, stirring from time to time until the shrimp is pink on all sides and starting to look translucent.
Add the chili sauce, balsamic vinegar, white wine and Sriracha and lower the heat. Stir to combine so that each piece of shrimp is fully coated with the sauce and cook, stirring from time to time until the fish is cooked through, about three additional minutes for regular sized shrimp.
