Green Curry Shrimp

I was going to make Green Curry Chicken, but decided to use shrimp instead and then a trip to the Asian Market totally changed the ingredients. This took more prep than the chicken dish, and whereas that dish has you throw all the meat and veggies in the sauce and just let it simmer for 10 minutes; for this one I sautéed a bunch of the ingredients up front. So if you want an easier recipe, try that one!

Note: I've adapted this over the years, but it orginally started with this Thai Kitchen recipe.

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• 1lb raw shrimp
• Olive Oil
• 1/2 med onion julienne
• 2 garlic cloves finely sliced
• 2 slices ginger, about 1" x 2", julienne
• fresno pepper, sliced in 1/4 length-ways, seeded and deveined, then minced
• 1 C vegetable broth
• 2 tsp Thai Kitchen green curry paste
• 2 tsp yellow curry powder
• ~14 oz coconut milk
• 2 Philippine eggplants, cut in 1" pieces
• 8 oz bamboo shoots
• 1 head sweet bok choy, cut in 1" pieces. Separate the stems from the leaves. Just rough cut.
• 8 oz Brown Beech mushrooms, bottom cut off and then mushroom left whole
• 10 cherry tomatoes cut in half
• 5 springs Thai Basil
• salt to taste
• Sweet and Sour pickled Mango

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You can start sweating the onions and garlic first. I use a french chef pan because it's easy to sauté in as well as simmer all the ingredients in the sauce. Put about a tbs of olive oil in the pan and start sautéing the onions and garlic. Do this on a low heat so they do not brown.

Prep the ginger and fresno pepper and then add them to the onions and garlic and keep them on low heat. Then prep the shrimp. You can get shrimp that is already cleaned; but I did not. It was headless, but it still took me about 20 minutes to clean it and devien it. Remove most of the onion mixture from the pan and set aside. Sauté the shrimp for a few minutes till it is mostly done. Remove the shrimp and set aside. Add the eggplant, bok choy stems, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots. Add each one at a time, stirring for a minute or two to sauté them a bit, then remove all of this vegetable mixture. Deglaze the pan with the vet able broth. Add the curry paste and power and simmer for a few minutes along with the original onion mixture that you set aside. Add the coconut milk and simmer this liquid for 5 minutes to let the flavors mix before you add the vegetables back in.

Add the vegetables and simmer for an additional 5 minutes. At this point it is almost done. Salt to taste. Add the bok choy leaves, thai basil, shrimp, and cherry tomatoes and simmer till the greens are cooked and the other shrimp and tomatoes are warm. This should just take a few minutes.

Plating: Traditionally this would be served over rice. I used ramen noodles. While the curry was simmering at the end, I cooked the ramen noodles for 3 minutes then pulled them from the liquid and put them on the plate, kind of like spaghetti. I then added some sweet and sour mango on the side.

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A note on Heat: I have to admit, as I'm getting whimpy with respect to spicyness. This has a little bit of heat to it, but not much. If you like your food hotter, use more curry paste and use more chilies. Rather than one fresno pepper you could add two, or a hotter chili such a serano. As with all my recipies, play with it and see what works for you!

Alternatives: Most of the veggies I used were because I had gone to the Asian market. I usually can't get all of these at say a Safeway or King Soopers. Some of these I had never had before, but they looked cool. I like to use eggplant in thai curry, but not traditional Italian eggplant. My preferred choices in order are: Thai, Philippine, Japanese. If I use Thai I quarter it.
Other non-protein ingredients I frequently use:

• Chick peas/garbanzo beans
• Fresh green beans cut in 1.5 inch pieces
• Red Bell pepper julienne
• Baby zucchini
• Other small mushrooms, such as enoki

I like round vegetables like baby zucchini, Philippine/Japanese eggplant, green beans; that I can cut across the vegetable and leave in whole chunks. But again, play with it and use whatever veggies you think would be good in a curry!
And finally, here are some other pics of the vegetable ingredients, whole or prepped.