Shrimp in Red Curry

I confess I am not an expert on curries. In fact, I do not remember enjoying curries since childhood. Because of this bias, I have not tried cooking curry dishes. In the groceries and supermarkets, I walk past the curry aisle with nary a glance. That is, until now. What made me change my mind? Seeing the yummy curry dishes on the blogs of fellow foodies! Besides, as a new food blogger, I should be more willing to expand the horizons of my taste buds and try out new dishes.

So, as I set out on my curry culinary adventure, I discovered many condiments related to curries! As a beginner, I settled on two. I bought a Thai red curry paste and a yellow curry paste. There is another - the green curry paste which I did not buy. I'm sure it would also be yummy, but I chose the more "colorful" ones first and see if I will get more inspired after trying out dishes with these two kinds of curries.

This Thai curry series made it easier for me to experiment. I got this recipe directly from the back of the packaging. Since this is my first experiment, I halved the recipe.

250 gms peeled shrimps (tails intact)
2 T red curry paste
a handful of sweet basil leaves (harvested from my balcony garden)
2 small eggplants, cubed
2 pcs dried kaffir lime leaves
2 pcs bird's eye chillies (Siling Labuyo)
1/4 C Coconut cream (I used the canned version)
2 T sugar
1 T fish sauce (Patis)
1/4 C water


1. In a wok or a cooking pan, dissolve the curry paste in the coconut cream while bringing the mixture to a boil.

2. Add the shrimps, eggplants, kaffir lime leaves, bird's eye chillies, sugar and fish sauce. Bring to boil and simmer until cooked, around 10 minutes. Add water, depending on how you prefer the consistency of your sauce. We prefer it a bit watery, so we can spoon the sauce over our rice so we added more water.

3. Add basil leaves just before turning the fire off. Adjust to your desired taste by adding salt or sugar.


My family was pleasantly surprised. This dish is quite unexpectedly yummy, sweet, flavorful and fragrant. It is probably because of the added fragrant herbs kaffir lime leaves and sweet basil. Or probably because of the combination of spicy, sweet and salty tastes. With dishes like this, we will truly be inspired to be more adventurous in our kitchen experiments.



This dish is submitted to Grow Your Own, a twice-a-month food blogging event, created by Andrea of Andrea's Recipes to celebrate the food ingredients we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we cook with our own produce. The host for this edition are Bee and Jai of Jugalbandi.
Please check out their blog in a few days to see the round-ups.