Shrimp Curry

Ingredients:

Tiger shrimp, peeled.
Two tomatoes chopped or if you have time, blanched, peeled, seeded tomatoes chopped.
4-6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 HOT peppers, chopped
1 large thumb of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon baharat or garam masala
1 tablespoon turmeric
Olive oil
Juice of half lemon
Parsley or cilantro, chopped


1. Heat oil in a shallow pan and fry garlic, ginger and hot peppers until garlic browns.
2. Add baharat/garam masala and turmeric, let fry for a minute or so.
3. Add chopped tomatoes, lower flame to low/medium and cook until tomatoes release juices and simmer. If sauce is dry add half cup of water or so. A wetter curry is better. Salt to taste.
4. Add shrimp and cover pan. Cook 10-15 minutes or until shrimp are firm.
5. Plate and add a squeeze of lemon and a generous handful of chopped parsley or cilantro.
6. Serve with basmati rice, Arabic bread, or paratha.



Beats the $15 shrimp curry you get at Indian restaurants any day.

i like your recipie... what kind of garam masala do you use? if i use chicken thighs is the cooking time the only thing that changes? thanks for sharing!

I use baharat, an Arabic spice mix available at groceries on Kedzie and Devon. I mentioned garam masala because it has similar flavor profiles and may be more readily available at places like Whole Foods, etc. You can also get garam masala at any grocery on Devon.

Chicken thighs are a good idea, but would require a much longer cooking time, I'd say 45 minutes to an hour.

I've yet to make any Indian food involving seafood at home. Never looked at a recipe, but this one seems to be screaming for curry leaf and sweated onion. I'd think curry leaf would match the lemon flavor very well. Anyway, with shrimp, or any other seafood, is curry leaf generally NOT used? Or is it just really a preference thing?

I'm thinking that sauce would go really well on some mussels, btw. And that's exactly what's gonna happen at the seebee house soon.

seebee wrote:I've yet to make any Indian food involving seafood at home. Never looked at a recipe, but this one seems to be screaming for curry leaf and sweated onion. I'd think curry leaf would match the lemon flavor very well. Anyway, with shrimp, or any other seafood, is curry leaf generally NOT used? Or is it just really a preference thing?

My mom always, always starts her seafood curries with a base of sauteed onions, and tosses in a curry leaf or two. However, a couple of the "aunties" from back home never used curry leaf in anything (which always resulted in my mom talking a bit of smack on the way home from dinner parties at their houses).

As a result of my mom's cooking I've grown up with a preference for both in my shrimp & fish curries (among other things)...though I could see sweated onions instead of sauteed resulting in a cleaner-flavored gravy, which I'd imagine would let the tomato & seafood flavors come through without the sweet/caramelized onion taste.

I think that the addition of a curry leaf is a great idea. It's just something I don't keep in the house or shop for often. I'll use it next time.

I like the idea of using onion, but I didn't here because the sauce and shrimp come together so quickly that the onion would still be chunky. I tend to like my onion "melted" into my sauces. Of course, giving them a good long fry before adding the other ingredients is a great solution.

All in all, this curry is more in the style of something you might find in the gulf. The addition of a ground dried lemon (noomi) would definitely take it there. Adding curry leaves would push it east to the subcontinent and finally, coconut milk would send it south to Kerala.

thanks... i'm definetely going to try this with chicken thighs... i'll throw in some curry leaves and an onion as well