Adventures in Cooking -- Thai Red Curry

My co-worker brought this dish to work a while back and I couldn't believe it when she told me she made it herself... it looked like delicious Thai takeout leftovers to me! She also claimed that the recipe was quick and easy, so I slapped it on Pinterest and promptly forgot about it, as per usual. I'm not that into cooking...

However, lately I've become SO bored with the bland, repetitive chicken and veggie dishes that Stew and I eat every week that I decided to go out on a limb... On Sunday I spent some time browsing my Pinterest recipe board for meal variations, and stumbled back upon this gem:

Thai Red Curry with Shrimp and Snow Peas

(makes 6-8 servings)

 

Ingredients

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 fresh red chili pepper, sliced
1 large yellow pepper, sliced
1 large red pepper, sliced
4 tbsp Thai red curry paste
2 pounds shrimp
2 cans lite coconut milk
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 cups snow peas
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 lime
 

 

Directions

Slice the bell pepper and fresh chili.

Finely chop cilantro.

Heat a large frying pan on medium heat and when it's hot add both vegetable oil and sesame oil.

Add chopped cilantro, sliced pepper and chili, and stir fry for a couple of minutes.

Add curry paste and cook it while stirring for a minute, then pour in coconut milk and fish sauce, mix to combine.

Add shrimp and snow peas and cook. As soon as shrimp is pink turn the heat off.

Add juice from one lime.

Serve over brown rice. 

 

 

The original recipe said to cook the shrimp for only three minutes, but mine still seemed pretty raw after that amount of time, so I left it in for quite a bit longer. I'm terrified of under cooking stuff. In hindsight, I probably would have just purchased shrimp that was already cooked. Also, I couldn't find snow peas at my grocery store, so I ended up using sugar snap peas which seemed basically the same. I also would have left out a little bit of the fresh cilantro to use as a garnish at the end.

To keep things a little healthier, I chose to use lite coconut milk instead of regular, and I served the curry over organic brown rice instead of white rice or noodles. You could also substitute with chicken or make it vegetarian (but personally I really liked the shrimp), and add any vegetables you like.

Frankly I was pretty proud of myself for accomplishing a dish like this from scratch! This made about 6 servings for me and Stew, but he's a pretty big eater so it's probably more like 8 servings for a typical family. I packed it all up into Tupperware and it's ready for us to eat for lunch this week.

 

Enjoy, my friends!