MidWeek Coconut Fish Curry

I love prawns, and think they work really well with pasta or curry, so when I came across this recipe for a coconut fish curry on the BBC Good Food website, where the prawns took centre stage, I knew I had to make it. The flavours are inspired by both India and Thailand and doesn't take that long to cook -the part that took longest was probably finding all the ingredients in the cupboard! So it makes a great mid-week meal.

The shrimp paste in the recipe is not the kind that you may have had n your sandwiches as a child; it is an essential ingredient in Thai cooking. These days it is easy to find in supermarkets like Tesco though, in the speciality ingredients aisle.

To serve 4, you need:
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, finely grated
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 small red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
2 lemongrass stalks, split and bruised with a rolling pin
1 heaped tbsp. medium curry powder
1 heaped tbsp. light muscovado sugar
small bunch of coriander, stems finely chopped
400g can coconut milk
450g skinless hake or other white fish fillets, cut into large chunks
220g prawns
1 lime, halved
cooked rice to serve
I also served mine with some broccoli

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion for 5 minutes until softened. Stir in the ginger, garlic, shrimp paste, chilli and lemongrass and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the curry powder and sugar and stir until the sugar starts to melt, then add the coriander stems, coconut milk and 2 tbsp. water. Bring to a simmer.

 

Add the fish and prawns and squeeze in half the lime. Simmer for 5 minutes until the fish is cooked, scatter over the coriander leaves and serve.