Pumpkin and seafood curry Recipe | 4Food

Date Published:: 09/10/2007

This Nigella recipe is taken from her popular Channel 4 series Nigella Bites, based on her popular book How To Eat.

I use the term 'TV dinners' loosely. The recipes aren't written just with sofabound slumping in mind. It's a good idea to have something up your sleeve that you can cook quickly, and simply, when you've got friends coming over to supper midweek after work. This is that something.

Don't let the length of the list of ingredients put you off. You really could go to the supermarket at lunchtime and buy everything you need. What's more, most of it keeps: salmon, raw prawns, lime leaves and lemongrass in the deep-freeze (and all but the salmon can be used from frozen); curry paste in the fridge; the coconut milk, fish sauce, fish stock concentrate and turmeric in the cupboard. In other words, one shopping expedition, many curries.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

400ml tin coconut milk
1-2 tbspns yellow (or red) Thai curry paste
350ml fish stock (I use boiling water and a slug of Benedicta Touch of Taste Concentrated fish bouillon; cubes would do)
3 tbspns fish sauce
2 tbspns palm sugar or caster sugar
3 lemon grass stalks each cut into three and bruised with the flat of a knife
3 lime leaves de stalked and cut into strips
half tsp tumeric
1 kg pumpkin (or butternut squash) peeled and cut into large bite- sized chunks
500g salmon fillet, preferably organic, skinned and cut into large bite- sized chunks
500g peeled raw prawns
pak choi or any other green vegetables of your choice
juice of half-1 lime
small bunch of coriander chopped, to serve

1.Skim the thick creamy top off the tin of coconut milk and put it, over medium heat, into a large saucepan or casserole with the curry paste. Let it sizzle and, using a fork, whisk or wooden spoon, beat milk and paste together until combined. Still beating, gently, add the rest of the coconut milk, fish stock, fish sauce, sugar, lemongrass, lime leaves and tumeric. Bring to a boil and then add the pumpkin.

Method: How to cook pumpkin and seafood curry

2.Cook on a fast simmer until the pumpkin is tender, about 15 minutes, although different sorts of pumpkins can vary enormously in the time they take to cook; some squash take as little as 5 minutes.

3.As I mentioned, you can cook the curry up till this part in advance, maybe leaving the pumpkin with still a tiny bit of bite to it (it will soften and cook as the pan cools). Either way, when you're about 5 minutes away from wanting to eat, get ready to cook the seafood.

4.So, to the robustly simmering pan, add the salmon and prawns (if you're using the prawns from frozen they'll need to go in before the salmon). When the salmon and prawns have cooked through, which shouldn't take more than 3-4 minutes, stir in the green veg you're using - sliced, chopped or shredded as suits - and tamp down with a wooden spoon.

5.When the pak choi is wilted, squeeze in the juice of half a lime, stir and taste and then add the juice of the remaining half if you feel it needs it. Take the pan off the heat or decant the curry into a large bowl, and sprinkle over the coriander; the point is the coriander goes in just before serving.

6.Serve with more chopped coriander, for people to add to their own bowls as they eat, and some plain Thai or basmati rice.