Quick Curry Leaf Shrimp

Quick Curry Leaf Shrimp

Wednesday night is dance lesson night around our house, and my job is to pick up Beautiful Granddaughter from school, get a healthy dinner into her, and take her to her Kathak class, (classical Indian dancing) and then take her back to her mummy.  As BG takes after her old grammie, she’s very fussy as to what she’ll eat.  Although I'm trying to stay vegan these days, all rules are thrown out when she's here.  I suppose I do bend over backwards sometimes, but it’s worth it.  She never turns down shrimp, and since it’s so quick to prepare, I often go with something like this:

1 tablespoon mustard oil
½ teaspoon dark mustard seed
½ teaspoon cumin seed
10 fresh curry leaves
pinch fennel seed
pinch of powdered cinnamon
1 inch ginger, matchsticked
small piece of chilli (to taste)
1 small red onion, diced
1 sweet red pepper, diced

as many shrimps as will be eaten (in our case of feeding two adults and 1 BG,  about 18)

The purple 'green' beans were too spicy for her!

You need to have your ingredients ready beforehand, as this goes quickly. 

Heat the oil to medium high and add a few mustard seeds.  When they splutter, add all mustard seeds, then the curry leaves, followed up by the cumin..Stir to make sure nothing burns.  Add the ginger, chilli and onion, and turn the heat down to medium.  Cook till onions are transparent and beginning to caramelise.  Add the sweet red pepper, and cook till soft. 

Add the shrimp and watch carefully, turning them over as soon as they pink up.  Serve as soon as they’re cooked through.  Normally I would give all a squeeze of lime juice, but BG doesn’t care for anything sour, so I refrain when she is around.

I also go very easy on the chilli for BG, although I managed to spice up the coconut green beans to the level of dynamite in the mouth, so she only nibbled one of those.  Getting any vegetables into her is always a trial, so I had to insist she eat at least some of the sweet red pepper  pieces before getting what she really wanted: rose mango frozen yogurt.  This week she’ll have the choice of the frozen yogurt or the frozen coconut milk dessert that outdances ice-cream any day of the week.  Maybe both.  I do have a tendency to indulge her…A strict Grammie I am not.

(While my coconut milk concoction might outdance genuine ice-cream, it doesn’t outdance BG.)  All powered up after this healthy dinner, she has lots of energy to dance up a storm!