EcrosTechWiki | Recipes / Goan Shrimp and Green Bean Curry

Adapted from a recipe by Suvir Saran in Organic Gardening, vol. 58, no. 2 (February/March 2011). My wife pulled this recipe from the magazine even though we had no idea at the time what curry leaves were or where to get them. Several years later, she gave me, as a birthday present, Indian cooking evening classes (clever, eh?). The last class in the series was a field trip to a neighboring city that had two Indian grocery stores and there were ... curry leaves! Now it’s a favorite meal for the two of us, one of the dishes in our annual Thanksgiving Eve Indian feast and we trot it out regularly for guests.

The original recipe was very hard to find, but here’s a link to it on the Wayback Machine. Given how much of this we’ve seen people eat, my biggest change is the number of servings it makes. I’ve reduced this from 8 to 4. Halve the quantities to make a meal for two. I’m afraid I don’t have a suggestion for what to do if you can’t find curry leaves.

Before you start cooking, you need to make a herb paste. Once you’ve added this meal to your repertoire, you’ll want to make larger batches of this and freeze it down in family-size portions. I typically make three times the quantity given below, divide it into six parts, cook with one and freeze the other five to make meals for two.

40	.....	Fresh curry leaves (or 50% more if frozen)
3-inch piece	.....	Fresh ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons	.....	Lemongrass paste (Gourmet Garden, for example)
1 bunch	.....	Cilantro, leaves and tender stems only, roughly chopped
1 or to taste	.....	Jalapeño or Serrano pepper, roughly chopped, deseeded if you like
as needed	.....	Coconut milk, stolen from the main recipe, below

Using a small food processor, pureé all the ingredients listed above into a "nearly smooth paste". Use just enough coconut milk to make the paste move around in the food processor bowl rather than clump against the outside.

2 tablespoons	.....	Olive oil, canola oil or similar
1½ teaspoons	.....	Cumin seeds
1 teaspoon	.....	Brown or black mustard seeds
15	.....	Fresh curry leaves (50% more if frozen), roughly chopped
3	.....	Dried red chili peppers (optional)
1 teaspoon	.....	Turmeric powder
1½ pounds	.....	Green beans, cut on a bias into ½-inch pieces
13½ ounce can	.....	Coconut milk
½ cup	.....	Cream (heavy, light or half-and-half)
1 teaspoon	.....	Kosher salt (or to taste, I use very little)
2 pounds	.....	Shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ cup	.....	Cilantro leaves, finely chopped

Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan on medium / high heat and add the cumin and mustard seeds. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the cumin seeds are browned and fragrant and the mustard seeds begin to pop (1 to 2 minutes).
Add the curry leaves, red chile peppers and turmeric. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
Reduce the heat to low, stir in the pureéd herb paste and cook until the mixture is very fragrant (2 to 3 minutes).
Add the green beans and cook for 4 to 6 minutes, adding a little liquid (water or coconut milk) if the pan gets too dry. The beans need to cook without burning the herbs.
Add the coconut milk and the cream. Increase the heat to high and stir to bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium / low and stir in the salt. Simmer until the beans are almost tender and the sauce begins to thicken.
Add the shrimp and simmer until they are cooked through, stirring occasionally (2 to 4 minutes, depending on the size of the shrimp).
Stir in the chopped cilantro and serve over rice (jasmine, long grain, basmati, etc.

So, what size of shrimp should you use in this dish? I don't think there's any point in paying for the larger sizes, so I would recommend medium to jumbo (50 to 21 per pound). Really, anything would do if you just adjust the cooking time.

Now, about those chili peppers. This dish is supposed to be a little spicy, but you won't spoil it if you cut right back on the heat. You know better than I do what you have in the pantry and at the grocery store and what your diner's preferences are. Basically, I'm telling you to ignore the recipe and play it by ear in this area. I find that a store-bought Jalapeño or Serrano (in the herb paste) does not add noticeable heat, so I do use the red chili peppers (in the main recipe), but you can completely miss them out if you like. Or you can use some red pepper flakes (such as you might put on a pizza) or a pinch of cayenne. What you don't want to do is throw in three Thai chilis; that will be too hot for most people. With my Indian grocery store in the next town, I have the luxury of Kashmiri, Byadagi and Guntur chilis (as well as what we grow in the garden) which I use according to who will be at the table.