Shrimp Curry

This savory curry is made in three simple steps: the sauce, the shrimp, and a combination of the two.

The quality of the spices you use to prepare curry are very important. Newly purchased spices that have been ground just before use will result in a wonderfully fragrant and flavorful curry. Stale spices are likely to make, at best, a mundane curry; or worse, a musty-tasting one. When you buy spices, note the date of purchase on the container. Most spices will keep for about a year, but should then be discarded. Whole spices, such as cardamon-seed capsules or cuminseed, will keep longer than ground ones. When using whole spices, however, remember to grind them before measuring.

Shrimp

• 2 pounds raw shrimp

• ½ cup shrimp stock

• 1 coconut (see note)

• 2 medium onions

• 1 bunch scallions

• 1 clove garlic

• 6 3/16” slices fresh ginger root

• 12 thin slices cucumber (optional)

• ¼ lemon or ½ lime

1. Shell and devein the shrimp.

2. Make simple stock by cooking a handful of shrimp shells in a cup of water for 10 minutes and then straining.

3. Break open the coconut with a hammer or heavy mallet and discard the liquid. Grate the coconut meat over a bowl, following the directions in the note at end of this recipe.

4. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the grated meat and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes. Squeeze out the liquid into a bowl by hand, or press the mixture through a sieve. After about 20 minutes a heavy cream will rise to the top. It is this cream that you will use to thicken as well as to flavor the sauce.

5. Next, make the curry powder.

Curry Powder

• 2 teaspoons ground turmeric

• ½ teaspoons cardamon, freshly ground

• 1 teaspoon ground cuminseed

• 1 teaspoon ground chilies, fresh or dried

• 2” piece of Ceylon rolled cinnamon bark

1. Grind the cardamon seeds, the cumin, and the chilies, if they are dried; then measure and set aside. To grind the spices, use a pepper mill or crush them fine with a mortar and pestle.

2. Grate the onions and finely cut the scallions.

3. Heat a half stick of the butter in a skillet until it is just past the peak of the foaming stage. Add the onions and scallions and sauté, without browning, until they are soft.

4. Stir in the ginger, the ground spices, and the piece of cinnamon. Curry powder absorbs lots of fat so add more butter if the mixture seems too thick; you want it to remain soft and pliable. Sauté for 3 or 4 minutes.

5. Add the shrimp stock and stir well to blend. Add the slices of cucumber, if desired, and let the sauce simmer slowly for 15 minutes. Remove from the burner and transfer to a 2-quart saucepan.

6. Clean the skillet and heat ½ stick of butter to the foaming stage. When the butter begins to brown along the outer edge of the pan, put in the shrimp. Keep the heat fairly high. Cook the shrimp for 2 or 3 minutes only, turning them while they cook. This searing is just to make them firm and plump; they will cook further in the sauce.

7. As soon as they are fairly pink, spoon them into the sauce. Add 4 tablespoons of the top cream from the coconut milk and stir well to combine with the sauce.

8. Cook the sauce just below a simmer for about 10 minutes after adding the shrimp. At no point should you cover the pan, for the sauce should be a medium-thick one; covering the pan tends to draw out the liquid from the vegetables and shrimp, which makes the sauce watery and thin.

9. Just before serving, squeeze over the juice from the lemon quarter or lime half. Serve hot with a large bowl of white rice.

10. If it is necessary to hold the curry after it has finished cooking, set it in a double boiler over hot water.

NOTE: It’s difficult to predict by looking at the outside of a coconut whether or not it will be sweet and flavorful. The only way you can test for sweetness is to break off a piece and taste it. As it would be a sad waste to make this curry without a good coconut, I recommend buying more than one, so you don’t risk having to dash out to search for a second one in the midst of your preparations. The unused half of a good coconut can be wrapped tightly in foil and kept in the freezer.

Note on Coconut Grating

Grated coconut is used widely and valued highly by people the world over. In the United States it is mostly used in its dried form. It’s been our feeling that the bother of grating coconut has discouraged many people from using fresh coconuts, and we have given a lot of thought to how grating could be simplified. Since we knew the Nigerians use a lot of grated coconut, we telephoned the Nigerian Mission to the United Nations and asked what they did about grating coconut, and they supplied us with a simple, soundly practical, yet original idea.

1. An empty tin can approximately 5” high and 2½” across can be easily made into a marvelously efficient coconut grater. With a hammer or any other heavy, blunt-ended instrument, carefully push out the closed end of the can into a slight dome.

2. Make eight ¼” holes using a large nail and hammer, four on each side of the seam along the closed (domed) half of the can.

3. Next, insert an ice pick through these holes and punch out as many holes as you can around the sides of the can. After you have punched through the first few holes you will begin to recognize a grater-like appearance on the outside of the tin.

4. Complete the grater by punching holes in the domed top of the can, piercing through from inside with the ice pick.

5. This grater eliminates having to pick the coconut out of the shell, which is generally a tedious and bothersome task, and it also eliminates the painful skinning of knuckles which so often happens when you grate small pieces on a standard grater.

Grating the Coconut

Scrub the coconut shell well under running water to remove any dust or fibers. Break the coconut in half with a sharp bang using a cleaver or a hammer.

Hold a coconut half in one hand and the grater in the other. Turn the coconut clockwise over the grater. Grate over a bowl or plate until you have as much coconut as you need.