I love seafood and I love flavor. My typical seafood seasonings are salt, pepper, old-bay, garlic, and some other traditional seasonings. After a brief conversation with my husband regarding his new love of curry, I knew I needed to try some “upgraded” flavors for my seafood dishes.
Have you ever combined red curry, coconut milk, seafood, and spinach? I hadn’t… but now that I have, my eyes have been opened to a new world of flavor combinations. I found a recipe from PaleoLeap.com and adapted their Curried Shrimps and Spinach recipe (already delicious) into a slightly elevated and non-paleo feast.
The traditional curry most people find in stores is a yellow curry. I decided to give red curry a try since it was a special item for sale at Aldi recently. Red curry and yellow curry are similar but have a slightly different profile. The red curry is a little spicier than the traditional style. It’s amazing that I’ll see one simple item at a grocery store and develop an entire meal around that one item.
If you’ve never made shrimp stock you need to learn how to now! Shrimp stock is a staple in New Orleans style cooking that adds a delicious seafood flavor to your meals. It can be used to replace chicken or vegetable stock in recipes. For my red curry shrimp recipe I used shrimp stock in my recipe to give my sauce a seafood flavor without overcooking the shrimp.
I also boiled my rice in the shrimp stock instead of water to give it a little extra flavor. To make the stock you boil shrimp heads and shells in water (or chicken stock) for about 20 minutes and strain so that only the liquid remains. I like to call my shrimp stock… liquid gold.
This meal turned out much better than I expected. it will probably become a staple in our home. My husband gave it the seal of approval and I must admit, it was quite delicious. If you’re looking for a slightly exotic recipe that’s relatively quick and easy. Check out my Red Curry and Shrimp recipe below!
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Shrimp Stock
- 1.5 lb shrimp with shells and heads still on
- 5 cups water
Rice
- 1 1/2 cups short grain rice
- 2 cups shrimp stock
Sauce
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon red curry powder
- 3/4 cup shrimp stock
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 1/4 cup coconut milk
- 3 cups chopped spinach
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Shrimp Stock
- Peel, remove heads, and clean shrimp. Set the shrimp aside for recipe use.
- In a medium sized stock pot combine shrimp heads, shells, and 5 cups water.
- Bring water and shell mixture to a boil and continue to boil for at least 15 minutes. The longer the mixture cooks, the more flavor the stock will have. If you cook longer than 20 minutes be sure to lower the heat to low so the mix can simmer.
- Pour shell mixture through a strainer into a container, saving liquid and discarding shells.
- Any unused stock and be frozen for later use.
Rice
- In a small saucepan combine 2 cups shrimp stock and 1.5 cups short grain rice.
- Bring to boil.
- Once boiling, cover and simmer over low for 20 minutes.
- Fluff rice with fork, re-cover, and let sit for 10 minutes.
- Serve warm.
Sauce
- Heat coconut oil over medium heat.
- Add in onion and cook, stirring occasionally until it begins to brown, about 5 minutes.
- Add red curry powder and stir to combine.
- Transfer onion mixture to a blender or food processor and add in 3/4 cup shrimp stock and tomato paste.
- Blend or pulse mixture until pureed and smooth.
- Pour puree mixture back to pan, add coconut milk.
- Cook over medium-low heat for 3 minutes, stirring to combine.
- Salt and pepper sauce to taste.
- Mix in shrimp and spinach until spinach is wilted and shrimp are pink.
- Serve over rice.
*Recipe adapted from Paleo Leap Curried Shrimps and Spinach.
2 responses to “Red Curry and Shrimp”
Cooking class, please?
Absolutely, come on over!