Cocunut Shrimp Curry

We do love curry and will often order out just curry at a favorite Thai restaurant. As my daughters and I became more familiar with Thai ingredients we decided to try a few Thai dishes at home. Curry was an easy place to start. My daughter sent me some small cans of red curry paste. Now even though the cans are small they contained way more than the recipe called for. I measured the paste in 1 teaspoon amounts and put each teaspoon on a piece of parchment paper. These were quick frozen and put in a labeled, freezer baggie. Now we get many uses of one can of curry paste. We tried this dish with chicken--it was not bad but we will stick to shrimp in the future.

Curry Ingredients
1 pound shrimp
2 tsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp canola oil (split and used at different times in the recipe)
1 cup chopped red pepper
1 cup chopped zucchini
1 cup snow peas, strings removed, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 cup bean sprouts
2 carrots, cut with a Julienne cutter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, grated
(when preparing ingredients mix the 1 tsp oil, garlic, and ginger in a small bowl - when it comes time to add it to the pan you'll pat yourself on the back for making it so easy!)

Coconut Curry Sauce
1 can coconut milk, not light
2 Tbsp fish sauce
2-3 tsp red curry paste
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp cornstarch

Combine the sauce ingredients in a medium bowl, set aside.

Make sure the shrimp are peeled, deveined, and thawed if previously frozen.  Toss the shrimp with soy sauce.  Heat 2 tsp oil in a skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally until curled and lightly brown, about 2 minutes.  Do NOT overcook. Transfer the shrimp to a clean bowl.

Add 1 Tbsp of oil to the pan and heat until shimmering.  Add bell pepper and cook until crisp tender, about 2 minutes.  Stir in zucchini and snow peas and cook one more minute.  Clear the center of the pan and add the oil, garlic, ginger mixture.  Cook, mashing into the pan with a spatula, until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Stir in cooked shrimp, bean sprouts and julienne carrots.  Quickly whisk sauce ingredients to recombine and add to pan.  Bring to a simmer.  Cook until the sauce thickens, about 1-2 minutes.  Serve immediately. Over a big bowl of rice. May accompany with Naan,
This recipe was inspired by one we saw on Mel's Kitchen Cafe