I have a serious love of all thai food. Thailand is one of my bucket list places to visit just because I love the food so much.
Red Curry Shrimp served with a coconut lime cauliflower rice – just stir-fry about 2 cups of cauli rice in some oil for a few mins till softened, then add 1 cup of coconut milk, salt and a squeeze of lime juice to finish it off.
So this is my version of red curry in a hurry. It is super quick to put together. The most time consuming part is prepping the veggies, but once that’s done, the actual curry comes together in minutes and uses only one pot.
I will often make this using deep fried tofu in place of shrimp. And it is friggin’ delicious! Feel free to swap out the veggies to use whatever you like or have on hand. Just make sure to cut them all to approximately the same size for even cooking and so it will all look pretty in the end. When you cook a quick meal like this it is important to start with the ingredients that take longer to cook first e.g carrots, potatoes, onions. Then add in the ingredients that need to stay ‘al dente’ or dont need much time to cook like, peppers and pineapple, right before you add the wet ingredients. That way the softer veggies don’t get all mushy by the time the cooking is done.
Do you de-vein your shrimp before cooking? I like to buy the de-veined kind whenever they come on sale, and just keep them in my freezer to have on hand whenever I feel like shrimp. I also recently learnt that the vein on top of the shrimp is the ‘poop’ vein (which is basically their digestive tract and can be quite gritty). But the ‘vein’ you see on the bottom of the shrimp (closer to where their legs would be) is actually just a nerve. So if you buy de-veined shrimp and find that it still has that ‘vein’ on the bottom, not to worry, you don’t actually have to clean that one out, unless it freaks you out too much. Personally, I hate cleaning shrimp so I buy the de-veined kind, and I don’t worry too much about the bottom ‘vein’ to save time. J has more patience for this kind of stuff, so if he is willing to clean them then I won’t stop him!
Red Curry Shrimp
Ingredients
- 2-3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 1 inch ginger
- 1 chilli pepper / jalapeño
- 1 carrot
- 1 green pepper
- 1 cup snow peas
- 1 cup broccoli florets
- 1 cup mushrooms
- 1 cup pineapple chunks (optional)
- 20-30 shrimp (peeled and deveined)
- 2 tbsp red curry paste my fav is this Thai cuisine experts
- 1 can coconut milk (full fat)
- 1.5 cup water
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 2 tbsp coconut aminos
- 1 tsp salt
- 5-8 basil leaves (thai or cinnamon basil is best, but regular basil will work too)
Instructions
Prep the Ingredients (can be done ahead of time):
- Slice the onions, ginger, chilli, carrot, green pepper, broccoli and mushrooms into thin strips. The idea is to make them all the same size as the snow peas so everything looks the same and will cook at the same time. Mince the garlic and finely chop (chiffonade) the basil.
- Remove the stingy bits from the snow peas (grab one end and pull - the string should come right off).
Assemble the Curry (this part is very quick, so have everything ready to go):
- Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large pot or wok on medium-high heat.
- Start with the carrots, stir-fry for about 3 mins -stirring often.
- Add the onion, chilli and garlic. Stir-fry a few more mins till onions start to turn translucent.
- Add the mushrooms and broccoli. Stir-fry for a few mins to warm up.
- Add the snow peas and peppers. Give it another couple of mins. Keep stirring.
- Add the coconut milk, water, red curry paste, fish sauce, coconut aminos, salt and pineapple, if using. Stir to combine and let the curry come to a boil.
- When the curry is boiling, add the shrimp and stir so they are all submerged. Allow the curry to come to a boil once more, stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on the shrimp. When they turn opaque. They are done (about 3-5 mins). Turn off the heat, top with basil leaves and serve with rice or cauliflower rice to keep it paleo.
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