I love XO sauce on its own; it’s so flavoursome & moreish, I can just eat a big bowl of rice with it. It also makes a fantastic complement to stir fries especially seafood ones because XO sauce itself contains dried scallops & dried shrimps, hence it’s slightly on the fishy side.
Normally, I would buy the Lee Kum Kee brand of XO sauce but recently I came across this Heng’s Crispy XO sauce on Qoo10. And so I bought one set to try together with many other products which I would review later on. The Heng’s Crispy XO Sauce alone retails at S$16 per bottle but they have this gift pack which also costs the same and it includes both the XO Sauce and Crispy Fish/Cuttlefish Chilli. Clearly, the gift pack is more worth it.
I first heard of Heng’s when the folks gave me a few bottles of the crispy chilli (in 3 flavours: fish, prawn & cuttlefish) which they bought from Malaysia. Yes, it’s a Malaysian brand/product. And since then, I would always buy it when I go to JB. You can also find them in supermarkets here now – I’m very sure I saw it at Fairprice hypermarket @ AMK Hub some time ago.
This Heng’s Crispy XO Sauce was different because the ingredients were fried to a crisp so if you ate it alone, you could really taste the crunch. And even after I used it to stir fry scallops and vegetables, it was pretty moreish too. The XO sauce was very well-seasoned so there wasn’t a need to add extra salt.
Stir Fried Scallops with XO Sauce Recipe
Ingredients: (serves 4)
16 Hokkaido scallops
120g fine asparagus
1 carrot, peeled & sliced
100g baby corn, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 cloves garlic, peeled & finely chopped
2 heaped tbsp XO sauce
1 tsp olive oil
spring onions for garnish
Instructions:
1. Heat oil in pan and saute the garlic till fragrant.
2. Add the asparagus, carrot and baby corn. Briefly stir fry for 30 seconds.
3. Add the scallops and XO sauce. Stir fry till the scallops turn opaque.
4. Garnish with spring onions and serve.
Have never heard of XO Sauce but will look out for it as I like the idea of the crunch.
Most common brand is Lee Kum Kee which should be easy to get from the Asian grocer but this brand isn’t the crispy type. I don’t think Heng’s brand (the crispy one) is out of Malaysia yet but who knows, you might find something similar of a different brand.