I ate it before I could take a photo of it. Sorry. It deserved a picture.
The other day M’hijito and I went over to the new westside Lee Lee, an Asian supermarket of local fame. While there, I picked up a three-lifetime supply of Madras curry.
If you’ve never tried Madras curry powder, consider seeking it out or making it. So lovely! It’s spicey-warm and…well, the only word I can think of is “mellow.” It’s a deliciously mellow, just slightly hot spice.
Around 10:15 this evening, I was moved to fix dinner. As you can imagine, the bare fact that it was after ten o’clock before I got around to eating reflected a difficult, nay, hair-pulling day. Luckily for you, you weren’t here!
Anyway, with the air conditioning system fixed and an estimate of taxes on Social Security benefits run and a new set of survival figures calculated (*$%$&*#@!!!), bills paid, budget rejiggered, pool cleaned, copy read, more copy left unread, inadvertently dessicated lime tree rescued, associate editor’s new GDU horror story confronted, friend’s woes heard, dog walked, thermostat re-re-re-reprogrammed, and the general hysteria ebbing, I wanted something easy and fast to prepare. Pulled an open bag of frozen shrimp out of the fridge and proceeded:
I had…
• four or five medium-sized frozen shrimp (one serving), defrosted and patted dry with a towel or paper towels
• some leaf lettuce
• a ripe mango (any fruit would do)
• 1/4 lime
• Madras curry, about 1 Tbsp
• about a tsp. of whole mustard seed
• 1 little green onion, coarsely chopped
• a few spoonsful of cooked rice
• a splash of olive oil
Peel and slice the mango. Place some nice leaves of lettuce on a dinner plate and set the mango slices on the lettuce. Squeeze a little lime juice over this mini-salad.
Pour a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan. Warm briefly over medium-high heat. Add the defrosted shrimp and the cut-up onion, a tablespoon or so of curry powder, and a sprinkle of mustard seeds. Cook the shrimp until it’s about done. Add some cooked rice. Stir gently until the shrimp is finished cooking and the rice is warm.
Place the cooked shrimp and rice on or very near the mango salad.
This is a lovely flavor combination. Easy, quick, and minimally messy. Good eating!
🙂
This sounds delicious! Funny how tastes change… years ago I nearly gagged at the thought of having sweet as part of dinner, and now it sounds quite yummy. Thanks for sharing, I’ll have to try having this soon.
My Indian cookbooks suggest cooking the spices in oil first to bring out the flavor. Sounds good any which way, however.
@ frugalscholar: Yes, that is a good idea. What I like to do is gently saute a little chopped or minced garlic with the curry powder in a small amount of olive (or other) oil. Cooking some garlic with the spice mixture before proceeding is very effective.
It was almost 10:30 at night before I started fixing dinner, & I was out of garlic, so just tossed the whole thing together in one swell foop. It worked pretty well.
@ Mrs. Accountability: Exactly. Our taste buds have been frightened by Jell-O and canned mandarin orange salads! Curry calls out for some kind of sweet accent, preferably fruit. In Arabia, our friend’s Pakistani cook used to serve Waldorf salad with his tongue-scorching curries.
Yummmmmm! That sounds delish. I have been a big fan of Madras curry because it is gringo-approved for not too hot curry in this house full of Yankees. Thanks for sharing the impromptu recipe!