Recipe: Cook Shirley's Water Dance

"The Water Dance": Spotted Prawns, Crustacnean Consomme, and Glass Noodles

Ingredients
8 each live spotted prawns
6 each live lobster
2 tbsp cooking oil
2 cups white wine
3 qt water
3 oz ginger
1 oz tomato paste
4 lemongrass
2 fennel
4 scallion
4 lime
2 Tbsp aged soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
16 sweet basil leaves
16 Thai basil leaves
16 mint tips
16 cilantro leaves
3 chive blossom
1 Tsp. chopped chives
1 serrano chili
6 egg whites
2 oz Dry glass noodle

Directions
1. Lightly blanch whole lobster and the prawns in the boiling vinegar water, to harvest their tails. Keep lobster raw. Reserve lobster and prawn heads for stock.
2. Soak the dry glass noodle in cold water to soften.
3. In a stock pot, heat up oil. Brown the lobster and prawn body and heads. Add and brown ginger, lemongrass, fennel tops, and scallion.
4. Add tomato paste and deglaze with white wine.
5. Add water, simmer for 45 minutes.
6. Skim the protein foam, strain and cool down.
7. Make a raft to clarify the stock. Blend egg whites and lobster claw meat. Add the raft to the cold stock, slowly bring it to simmer. Add soy, vinegar, and fresh lime juice to the stock. Salt to taste, then strain the consommé.
8. Slice the lobster tail into thin slices. Butterfly the prawns.
9. Take out 1 qt of consommé and cook the soft glass noodle in it. Strain.
10. Plate fennel on the bottom of the plates, then glass noodle, lobster and prawns, sliced sersrrano, and all herb leaves.
11. Pour hot consommé on to the prawns and lobster to cook tableside.