Shrimp & Coconut Curry
For me, cooking is a whole ritualistic thing. It involves music and dancing and usually does not have a time restriction.
However, life can be busy and does not always allow for hours in the kitchen. On busy days (when I have no leftovers in the fridge), I appreciate things that can be made quickly. For those of you who don't know, this blog was started to inspire my med school classmates to take care of themselves as well as they do their patients. I often used to hear things about their busy schedules like "I can't drink water because I don't have time to pee" and "I never have time or ideas of what to cook". To those of you, here is a little gift. This curry only 30 minutes to make (and that includes the time it took for me to defrost frozen shrimp) and most of the other ingredients can be found in your pantry.
Prep Time: 5 to 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Serves 3 to 4
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup fried onions (you can use fresh onion - add a little extra oil and pan fry the finely chopped onion until brown before adding garlic and ginger)
1 cup coconut milk (for this, I used light coconut milk but both would work well)
1 tbsp greek yogurt (optional for a creamier texture)
40 shrimp, uncooked, shelled, deveined and tails off
Ingredients
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp ginger paste
1 cup crushed tomatoes (or 1 large tomato, cut into small pieces)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp cumin powder
1/4 tsp coriander powder
1/8 tsp turmeric powder
1/8 tsp chili powder (more if you want a bit of a kick)
1 tsp paprika
Method
In a food processor or blender (or even by hand) blend the tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, coriander, turmeric, chili, paprika and salt and set aside.
If you plan on frying your own onions, do that now and then set them aside. This takes more time, so my promise of 30 minutes will be broken.
In a saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the garlic and ginger.
After a couple of minutes, add the blended spice and tomato mixture and allow to cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
Add 1/2 cup of water to the saucepan as well as the fried onions and once simmering add the coconut milk.
Let the curry simmer for 10 minutes. If you want to make this cooking experience more ritualistic (which, I encourage you to do), let it stay on the stove a little longer while you clean up your mess, dance around, cook some rice etc. etc.
When you are getting ready to eat, add the shrimp and allow to cook for an additional 7 to 10 minutes until shrimp are cooked.
Serve with roti or basmati rice.
nutritional info (per serving)
calories 223 kcal - fat 9g - saturated fat 4g - carbohydrates 8g - protein 24g - dietary fibre 2g - sugars 3g - sodium 465mg