Cooked: Shrimp in Coconut Milk

JP loves shrimp. Buttered shrimp, to be specific. On weekends, we’d pick up a bunch of fresh shrimps from the grocery, cook them in garlic, butter(loads of butter) and some salt and pepper.

Yesterday, I felt like eating shrimps, but wanted something different. I looked up some Filipino recipes and found one for Shrimp in Coconut Milk.

Ingredients:
Long beans, squash/pumpkin, 1 small onion, one head of garlic
*chop then all 🙂

Of course, the shrimp, coconut milk, a few tablespoons of vegetable oil and fish sauce (patis!)

A note on the ingredients: for the shrimps, I picked up about 14 pieces of the medium sized ones, just because JP and I manage to finish that much when we have our meal (with some leftover for one person). The coconut cream is really just a substition for the fresh one. Nothing beats fresh coconut cream, but since this is Singapore, and I have no idea (yet!) where to get fresh coconut milk, we have to improvise, people.

Make sure to wash the vegetables and the shrimp in water before cooking. And cut out that antennae(is that what it’s called?). You can also remove the shell from the shrimp, but I like leaving it there for the flavor.

Sautee the shrimp in garlic and oil. Once it’s almost cooked, set it aside.

Leave a little of the garlic, and onion on the pan. Add in the squash (kalabasa!) and the coconut cream. Add a bit of water, about 1/2 cup, because you don’t want it to be too creamy. But if you do, then leave out the water.

After about 5 minutes, or when the squash is quite soft (not too soft. if you stick a fork into it, you shouldn’t have to exert the same effort as when you were slicing it earlier. So it should still be firm, but soft enough that the fork can go through it cleanly). When that’s done, add in the long beans.

You can also add in the fish sauce, some ground pepper and salt, too to add flavor.