Curried Shrimp with Pineapple

I’ve been making this dish since I was in my late twenties. There never was a recipe; I just kept experimenting until it came out well. The shrimp and pineapple are often included although chicken can be substituted for the shrimp or it can be made without either as a true vegetarian dish. I commonly use mushrooms of which there are so many tasty varieties and tofu with all sorts of different vegetables. Tofu is a super food, as healthy as it gets. But, if you don’t like tofu, don’t include it. The decision as what to use is often made by what’s in the vegetable drawer or garden. You don’t need five or six vegetables (I’ve done that) it’s kind of overwhelming if you do. As with other dishes I make, a 1/2lb of shrimp is enough for two people, 1lb for four. What follows is a common version of this very rich and tasty dish. Note: the photograph above is this meal cooked by my daughter Shelby who both loves this dish and has mastered preparing it.

Olive oil
3 cloves of diced garlic
1 Jalapeno or 2 Serrano hot peppers chopped (this is optional)
12oz of mushrooms
Couple handfuls of carrots (I prefer carrot chips)
1 can of pineapple chunks (or rings, cut into chunks) in pineapple juice
1 package of extra firm tofu cut into slabs
16oz (1 pint) of light cream
2 table spoons of Madras curry
2 ripe lemons
1/2lb to 1lb of jumbo cleaned and deveined shrimp
Handful of cashew halves
Chopped fresh parsley
Rice pilaf

This recipe has a little bit of prep time. First I put the tofu in a bowl and put a plate with something heavy on top of it. This will help press excess water out of the tofu. Then you cut it into ½” thick slabs. The shrimp needs to be cleaned and deveined. Cut up the mushrooms and whatever other vegetables you have, peppers, cauliflower, zucchini, carrots etc all work well. The lemons should be squeezed into juice. I have an old fashioned 1950s Wear-Ever lemon press that works great. The curry powder needs to be mixed into the cream. I use a Nalgene screw cap water bottle and vigorously shake the mixture repeatedly.

Start with the garlic and hot peppers in olive oil in a skillet. I use another antique, a big old #10 cast iron skillet, the workhorse of my kitchen. Lightly brown the garlic and add the mushrooms and carrots. I like to give mushrooms and carrots a head start and cook them for several minutes before adding the other ingredients. They will need some fluid to cook in, wine works but the juice from the canned pineapple works even better. After ten minutes or so I pour the well shaken cream/curry mix into the skillet. The pineapple can go in now. At first the oil and cream will remain separate but with steady gentle stirring they will blend and thicken nicely over the next ten or twelve minutes.

Near the end pour in the lemon juice and then add the tofu, shrimp and cashews, none need to be cooked for long. Tofu is fragile and will fall apart if stirred too much. The shrimp will cook in four to five minutes… don’t overcook. Serve over rice pilaf and garnish with fresh chopped parsley.

This is another flavor explosion dish. You can control the spicy heat with the hot peppers. You don’t necessarily need the hot peppers; if you don’t like spicy hot, the curry has a ton of flavor all by itself. The lemon and pineapple juice give this dish a refreshing zing.

The bottom line on this dish is just about everything is negotiable except for the ingredients in the sauce part. You can use whatever vegetables, tofu, seafood that you like and it will taste great. Here’s another thought, this dish reheats well except for the shrimp. We get two dinners out of this, so we put in a half pound of shrimp and eat all of them the first night. The second night is still great, the curry really sinks into the tofu, there just isn’t any shrimp.

Enjoy!

~David