Friday, March 27, 2026

Tomato Shrimp Curry @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

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!




Next up is A Poisonous Pour! This third Cece Barton mystery releases April 28.





My most recent releases are Scone Cold Dead#13 in the Country Store Mysteries,









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We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.


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.



25 comments:

  1. The Tomato Shrimp Curry looks fabulous, Edith! I'd love to win that Maddie Day apron! Some of my favorite Asian dishes I often order out and also make at home are Sweet and Sour Pork, Char Sui Pork, and Princess Prawns. Here's a well-detailed recipe for a similar prawn dish like Princess: https://www.recipetineats.com/honey-prawns-stays-crispy/ I also like my tweaked versions of https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/indonesian-ginger-chicken-recipe-1913010 and https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/green-curry-chicken-recipe-1951849
    Thanks for the giveaway, the wonderful recipe and news about the Burma Superstar cookbook - I just requested it from the library!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The closest to Asian food I have had is Sweet & Sour Chicken and General Tso's Chicken your Shrimp Curry recipe sounds good. All the books look like really good reads would love to read all of them in print format
    Hope I Win
    don.stewart@zoominternet.net

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm going to have to get the ingredients to make your shrimp curry recipe. It sounds fabulous. I love General Tso's chicken. Thanks for the chance to win this giveaway! deborahdumm@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for the Tomato Shrimp Curry recipe. We love anything with shrimp in it. This looks and sounds delicious!
    Two of our favorites is Orange Cashew Chicken and Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

    ReplyDelete
  5. Not a fan of shrimp but do love a good piece of Salmon. cheetahthecat1982ATgmailDOTcom

    ReplyDelete
  6. I haven't actually had very many Asian dishes but I do like Almond Chicken and Crab Rangoon. Thanks for the chance to win the apron. Love it! ckmbeg (at) gmail (dot) com

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't make a lot of Asian dishes at home, except a stir fry and that can be whatever is in the fridge! I find that restaurants do a much better job with those extra ingredients I rarely have handy. Have tossed too many containers of expired items already.

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  8. How wonderful of you to share this recipe, Edith!!! I love Asian food, and 9 out of 10 times we go to an Asian restaurant when we dine out! We also make curries, and this one intrigues me, so I will omit the infamous onions and forge ahead! This dish reminds me of a curry dish my wife and I learned to make at a cooking class in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I am also most curious about the tea leaves used for a salad. I will inquire at my local Asian food market and hope to find them. Next time I am in SFO, I will definitely go to BURMA SUPERSTAR. Burma (now MYANMAR) was in my travel plans right before the military coup, so now it just sits in my travel bucket list... I must say that my favorite Asian dish, which we make, and I order at restaurants (to compare quality) is MUSAMAN CURRY. When we lived in Miami, restaurants added sliced avocados to this dish, which is not done anywhere else...we do add them at home. Thank you once again for all the culinary delights you share with us readereaters on top of your addictive mystery books. JOY!!! Luis at ole dot travel

    ReplyDelete
  9. EDITH: I am so glad you got the cookbook. We only have one Burmese restaurant here in Ottawa and their food is not even close to as good as eating at Burma Superstar! I agree with you their tea leaf salad is so yummy.

    Hard to pick one fave Asian dish but I will go with Hong Kong styled roast duck (or goose). I am still dreaming about the succulent meat I ate in Hong Kong last month.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was you who told me about the cookbook, wasn't it? Sorry, I was trying to remember!

      Delete
    2. Yes, it was me. I was at the smaller Green Apple in the Park Bookstore & posted a photo of the Burma Superstar cookbook cover & the tea leaf salad recipe on FB.

      Delete
  10. I like green curry and almost any noodle dish.
    Wskwared(at)yahoo(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  11. Your recipe looks so good! I like Kung Pao Chicken amd Sweet and Sour Chicken. Yum!

    Thank you for the chance!

    jarjm1980(at)hotmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  12. Your tomato shrimp curry dish looks fantastic, Edith! Yum!

    ReplyDelete