Made it Monday: Color + Form

Photography by Ryan Matthew Smith

Curry Shrimp Creole

Hello again, everyone. If you’re reading this, it means you made it through another Monday. If you aren’t reading this, then I’ll mourn for you. (Because not reading the F&A tumblr is a sad, sad thing.)

This week I’ll be sharing my recipe for Curry Shrimp Creole. It’s a dish that produces a nice contrast to the weather outside, in both color and flavor. The deep reds, bright pink shrimp, and green parsley and peppers offer a pleasing color palette, and are reminiscent of the vivid colors often seen in creole and Caribbean art.

Terra Cibus No. 32 Shrimp Tale, by photographer Caren Alpert

I rarely make this dish the same way twice, and there’s really no way to make it inedible unless you burn the veggies or overcook the shrimp. The only specialty ingredients you need are shrimp, chili sauce, and curry powder. 

Okay, so, ingredients as follows:

• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 medium-sized onion, also diced
• 3 or 4 stalks celery, cut in to 1/2-inch sections (The width of a girl’s pinkie, basically)
• A couple cloves of garlic, minced. (The amount of garlic you add depend on how much you like garlic. I add 4 and wouldn’t go below 2)
• Olive oil
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (8oz or thereabouts)
• 1/2 bottle of the aforementioned chili sauce (more if you like it saucier, less if  you like it thicker)
• A healthy handful of fresh parsley, cut finely.
• 1 pound shrimp (fresh or frozen makes no difference, just make sure you thaw them ahead of time if they are frozen)
• Thyme
• Curry powder
• Salt
• Prepared hot sauce (Tabasco is traditional but I like Sriracha because the flavors are deeper)

Preparation: Put a medium to large pot on the stove. Drizzle in some olive oil, and add the peppers, celery, and onion. Set your heat to medium. Stir that business around for a while, and marvel at how good your kitchen smells. After a couple minutes, add the garlic, and keep stirring. You’ll be done when the onion starts to soften and get translucent. Watch your heat, because you don’t want to burn the garlic.

After your vegetables have reached a tender-crisp stage, pour in the tomatoes and chili sauce. Add a healthy dose of curry powder and thyme, and the parsley. Add a dash of salt. (I have never measured these quantities. Don’t go too crazy, but the curry powder taste is pretty integral, so just use your best judgment and taste it a lot. Remember that you can always add more, but you cannot take it away.) Stir it all around, cover, and reduce your heat to low. You are aiming for a low simmer. The longer you let this simmer, the better it’s going to taste. If I’m making this on a day off, I start it in the afternoon. 20 minutes is pretty much a minimum, though.

When your guests (cats in costumes, stuffed animals, full-size cardboard cutout of Pamela Anderson, etc.) are all seated at the table, up the heat to medium and add the shrimp, stirring constantly. Your shrimp will cook in three to five minutes, and when they are done, you want to pull this right off the heat and serve it. Overcooked shrimp will be tough and gross. When the shrimp are a uniform pink color and have firmed up a bit, they’re done.

I like to let people add their own hot sauce, because not everyone likes the same degree of heat. Again, you can always add, but you can never take away. Serve over a bed of rice, if you want. You can add a spritz of lemon juice, too! You can serve this with a white wine, or even a light red, but my favourite is a crispy cold beer. The perfect match.

Also, one trick I have used in the past is to make a big batch of this on the weekend, stopping before you add the shrimp - the recipe doubles easily.  Then you can freeze the base in two batches. Later, before you head to work, just pull it out and stick it in the fridge to thaw. Heat it up when you get home, add shrimp, and eat! That way, you can simmer it for as long as you want and let those flavors really blend.

The quantities I used above will serve two people well. For four, just double everything.

Good luck!

(Quinn Daly is a retired horse trainer, writer, and photographer. He enjoys cocktails, food, and “art, in general.”)