Shrimp in Yellow Curry

Preparation

1. Step 1

   Put the oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, and chiles and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are tender and the mixture pasty. Add the curry powder and cook, stirring, for another minute.

   Step 2

   Add the coconut milk and raise the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring only occasionally, until the mixture is reduced by about half. (The dish can be prepared to this point a few hours in advance.)

   Step 3

   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. Add 1 tablespoon nam pla, stir, then taste and add the rest if necessary. Garnish with cilantro.

2. Shrimp

   Step 4

   Almost all shrimp are frozen before sale. So unless you’re 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.

3. Step 5

   There are no universal standards for shrimp size; large and medium don’t mean much. Therefore, it pays to learn to judge shrimp size by the number per pound, as retailers do. Shrimp labeled 16/20, for example, contain sixteen to twenty per pound; those labeled U-20 require fewer (under) twenty to make a pound. 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).

4. Step 6

   On deveining: I don’t. You can, if you like, but it’s a thankless task, and there isn’t one person in a hundred who could blind-taste the difference between shrimp that have and have not been deveined.