MADDIE DAY here.
When I was in San Francisco last month for Left Coast Crime, my cousin took me to Burma Superstar, a popular restaurant. I loved the food (especially the tea leaf salad), and when I learned there is a cookbook by the owners, I had to order a copy.
This recipe is adapted from one I found in the book.
I might make the tea leaf salad one day, but I'll need to acquire some special ingredients for that. This curry, on the other hand, was simple and tasty and quick to prepare for a weeknight dinner.
Tomato
Shrimp Curry
Adapted
from the cookbook Burma Superstar: Addictive Recipes from the Crossroads of
Southeast Asia by Desmond Tan and Kate Leahy.
Ingredients
1
pound large shelled shrimp, thawed
1
tablespoon fish sauce
½ teaspoon
salt
3
tablespoons canola oil
1
finely diced onion
1 sweet
red pepper, diced
2
stalks celery, minced (not shown in photo)
2
tablespoons minced garlic
1
tablespoon minced ginger
1
teaspoon curry powder
½ teaspoon
black pepper
½ to
1 teaspoon Thai green chile paste
1
teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon
turmeric
2
cups diced Roma tomatoes
Directions
In a
bowl, mix the shrimp with fish sauce and salt and let sit at room temperature.
Heat
oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally,
until they soften and begin to brown, about six minutes. Stir in garlic and
ginger and cook 1 minute. Add chile paste, paprika, and turmeric and stir.
Add celery and tomatoes and cook, stirring often, until tomatoes lose their shape and soften and the sauce is thick enough to stand up on a spoon, about 7 minutes. If the tomatoes are on the dry side, add about ¼ cup of water to help them cook down.
Stir
in the shrimp and gently coat in the sauce. (Sorry, I forgot to snap a photo of this stage.) Cook gently 3-5 minutes until
shrimp are cooked through. Taste, adding more salt or fish sauce as desired.
Serve over hot white rice or rice noodles.
Note:
the book recommends adding 1 teaspoon shrimp paste and 1-2 Thai chiles instead
of the chile paste to the sauce, and providing both cilantro and lemon wedges
as garnishes. I had none of that and can’t tolerate hot peppers, thus the
adaptation.
Readers: What's your favorite Asian dish? I'll send one commenter one of my special Author aprons!
Murder at Cape Costumers is out and available wherever book are sold!
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Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.
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