Bai zhuo xia is restraint as a cooking technique. Good prawns go into seasoned water for barely two minutes, come out sweet and snapping, and everything else happens in the dipping bowl.
The sauce is where the work is, and it is still almost no work: soy, a little sugar, piles of julienned ginger and spring onion, then hot oil poured over the top so it sizzles and softens the aromatics.
Peel them at the table with your fingers. It is not a tidy dinner, which is part of the appeal.
