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1
Put the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat.
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2
Add the onion, garlic, ginger, and chiles and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are tender and the mixture pasty.
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3
Add the curry powder and cook, stirring, for another minute.
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4
Add the coconut milk and raise the heat to medium-high.
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5
Cook, stirring only occasionally, until the mixture is reduced by about half.
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6
(The dish can be prepared to this point a few hours in advance.)
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7
Add the shrimp, a few pinches of salt, and a little black pepper and cook, stirring frequently, until the shrimp release their liquid (the mixture will become quite moist again) and turn pink, 5 to 10 minutes.
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8
Add 1 tablespoon nam pla, stir, then taste and add the rest if necessary.
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9
Garnish with cilantro.
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10
Almost all shrimp are frozen before sale.
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11
So unless youre in a hurry, you might as well buy them frozen and defrost them yourself; this will guarantee you that they are defrosted just before you cook them, therefore retaining peak quality.
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12
There are no universal standards for shrimp size; large and medium dont mean much.
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13
Therefore, it pays to learn to judge shrimp size by the number per pound, as retailers do.
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14
Shrimp labeled 16/20, for example, contain sixteen to twenty per pound; those labeled U-20 require fewer (under) twenty to make a pound.
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15
Shrimp from fifteen to about thirty per pound usually give the best combination of flavor, ease (peeling tiny shrimp is a nuisance), and value (really big shrimp usually cost more than $15 a pound).
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16
On deveining: I dont.
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17
You can, if you like, but its a thankless task, and there isnt one person in a hundred who could blind-taste the difference between shrimp that have and have not been deveined.
