Edamame is the Japanese name for fresh soy beans. When bought frozen, the pods have been discarded and you get only the beans. More convenient, actually, but so much flavor us lost during freezing.
If you buy edamame fresh, you get the whole pods. Choose fresh over frozen if you find yourself wondering if you’re capable of prepping the pods. It’s not hard at all. I wrote a step-by-step guide a while back.
How to cook edamame (fresh soy beans in pods)
What do soy sauce, soy milk and tofu have in common? They are all made from soy beans.
Just follow the instructions (I learned the technique from an episode in of Good Eats) so you can get the rich flavor and texture of fresh edamame every time you want to include it in a dish.
No access to edamame? You may substitute sweet peas. The mouth feel won't be the same but the cooked dish will be delicious too.The prep time and cook time specified below are based on the presumption that you have already cooked and shelled the edamame.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1 shallot peeled and roughly chopped
- 6 to 8 shrimps peeled and deveined (frozen whole shrimps were used in this recipe, hence, the short cooking time)
- salt
- ½ cup edamame
- ¼ cup sweet chili sauce
- rice to serve
- ½ teaspoon toasted sesame seeds black was used here but any color is fine
Instructions
- Heat the cooking oil in a wok or frying pan until just starting to smoke.
- Dump in the shelled and deveined shrimps with the chopped shallot.
- Sprinkle in a generous pinch of salt.
- Stir fry for a minute.
- Add the cooked edamame and stir fry for a minute.
- Pour in the sweet chili sauce and toss to allow the sauce to coat everything in the pan.
- Serve the sweet chili shrimps with edamame over hot rice sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.
