Thai Coconut Shrimp Curry

I'm always a big fan of curry. No matter if it's Thai, Indian, or Japanese, I love them all. For cooking at home, I tend to go for Thai curry a lot more. It might all because of coconut milk. For Indian curry, all the flavor comes from a meticulously balanced medley of spices plus water. It's very hard to get it just right. Whenever I made Indian curry, I's either too much turmeric, or not enough coriander. It just never came close to what I had at Indian restaurants. For Japanese curry, you either go the super simplified route: use curry cube, or the complicated route: make the curry roux ahead. The former takes away your control of the flavor while the latter puts your in the same shoes as Indian curry plus it's more work. For Thai curry on the other hand,  the use of coconut milk can somehow mask any imperfection and leave some margin of error without ruin your dish. For me personally, I like to use a combination of store bought curry paste along side with some dry spices to for some extra flavor. 

Another thing I love about Thai curry in general is that you can be quite liberal with the veggies without making the dish seem weird. Have a bunch of left over kale on hand from making salad last week? Throw them in. Have a couple heads of bok choy left over from stir-friday? Throw them in. Have extra squash slices left over from making ratatouille? Throw them in. So I rarely follow exactly what the recipe calls for and make substitutions based on the stock in my fridge.

You can of course, make curry with all sorts of protein. Beef, chicken, fish, tofu, just to list a few. For a week day night dish, it's easier to choose something that cooks fast, like seafood or tofu to cut down on cooking time. For shrimps in this case, I general have frozen shrimps on hand. I just put them in a bowl of lukewarm water to thaw while prepping everything. Once prep is done, the shrimps are ready to be pat dry, seasons, and seared. I like to sear most proteins (except salmon and tofu) before adding them in the curry. I find it creates a barrier to lock in moisture so that the curry won't get too watery.

Traditionally, white rice or sticky rice goes well with Thai curry. But to keep it healthy, I'm using quinoa to stand in for rice. Totally not because I have some leftover from the breakfast bowl recipe a few days back ;) 

Ingredients (2 servings)

• 1 lbs of shrimps
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 small yellow onion sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 tablespoon red curry paste
• 1 tablespoon yellow curry powder
• half container (200ml) Coconut Milk (Unsweetened)
• 1 teaspoon or to taste fish sauce
• 1 large Portabella mushroom sliced
• 5 leaves, Basil, fresh
• 2 cups Lacinato kale
• 1 cup cooked quinoa

Instructions

• Pat dry the shrimps, salt and pepper, and sear the shrimps in the sauce pan with 1 tablespoon of oil until both sides are pink.
• Take the shrimps out and set aside. Add the onion to the sauce pan, and stir until fragrant, then add the garlic. Stir for 30 seconds.
• Add the curry paste and curry powder. Stir in the pan until everything is coated with curry and fond is formed at the bottom of the pan.
• Add the shrimp back in and pour in the coconut milk, fish sauce, and mushroom (or other slower cooking veggies).
• Cook for 3 - 5 minutes or until the shrimp is cooked through.
• Stir in the basil and kale (or other quick cooking veggie)
• When the basil and kale are wilted, you can ladle it on top of your quinoa or rice and enjoy!