I Blame the Gnomes

The bird may be driving me crazy, but I don’t think it’s capable of stealing my stuff. That leads me to believe that I’m to blame for misplacing things recently. I’ve managed to misplace things both on my computer and around my house. I’m certain there are a few recipes that I’ve typed up multiple times, but each time I go to find them, they’re gone. I run a search on my computer but can never find the file I’m looking for. I am then forced to find the hard copy of the recipe in my towering and unsteady stack of cookbooks and to retype it. The whole time that I’m typing it I’m thinking to myself ‘I KNOW I’ve typed this before.’ It frustrates me to no end. As far as losing things around the house, it’s happening in the kitchen, (I can’t find my metal spatula for flipping fish) and elsewhere as well. I spent way too much time looking for a pair of shoes the other day, only to find them exactly where I initially looked for them without success.

Searching high and low for my shoes reminded me of a time in my last year of university when my roommate couldn’t find her new and favourite pair of leather boots. We didn’t live in a very big apartment so there weren’t very many places they could be. We looked everywhere but they could not be found. My roommate became convinced that they had been stolen, despite the fact that nothing else in our apartment was missing. She was absolutely certain that someone had broken into our apartment for the sole purpose of stealing her boots. She also became suspicious of the girls who lived in the apartment below ours, thinking that they had snuck in one day while she was doing laundry, stolen the boots and then hightailed it out of there before they could be caught. Every time we saw those girls my roommate’s gaze went immediately to their feet, hoping to catch them in the act of wearing her boots. It never happened and the location of the boots remains a mystery to this day.

I hate to leave you in complete suspense like that so I’ll reveal the mystery recipe behind this Red Curry with Shrimp and Sugar Snap Peas. It’s courtesy of another fabulous issue of Fine Cooking, which is quite possibly my favourite food magazine. To hear more of what I have to say about the latest issue of Fine Cooking, you can read my review and discover a recipe for Chocolate Crackle cookies, (with a mystery ingredient) over on my post at Paper Palate.

Red Curry with Shrimp and Sugar Snap Peas, (Adapted from Fine Cooking, December 2007)

2 T canola oil

2 T jarred or homemade red curry paste

15 oz can unsweetened coconut milk

1 cup low salt chicken broth,

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 cups sugar snap peas, trimmed

1 ½ bean sprouts

5 kaffir limes leaves, torn

2 T fish sauce

1 T light brown sugar

½ tsp kosher salt

Udon noodles

Heat the oil in a 2-3 quart saucepan over medium heat until a bit of curry paste just sizzles when added to the pan. Add all the curry paste and cook, pressing and stirring with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula to soften the paste and it in with the oil, until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Add the coconut milk and broth and bring to a simmer. Simmer, stirring often, for 5 minutes, allowing the flavours to develop.

Increase the heat to medium high and let the curry come to a strong boil. Add the shrimp, sugar snap pea, bean sprouts and lime leaves and stir well. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp curl and turn pink, about 2 minutes. Add the fish sauce, sugar and salt and stir to combine. Remove from the heat. Let rest for 5 minutes to allow the flavours to develop.

Serve over udon noodles in bowls, as it’s almost a soup.

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Shrimp + Pasta + Thai + Curry