Coconut and Korean red chili paste “Gochujang” prawn curry

I love pretty much any kind of hearty food. But if I had to choose one, I would definitely go for a pot of hot stew or curry. I often call it a “belly warming food” :-). Being Korean, I grew up with soup and stew, which are essential parts of Korean cuisine. But I think these kinds of food are just so comforting to anyone no matter where you are from. So today I decided to make hearty, comforting, quick and easy one pot curry (not much washing up!) mainly with South East Asian ingredients (I need to use leftover coconut milk from the dairy-free rice pudding I made for my previous post ;-)) and a little bit of Korean flavor. This dish is mildly spicy but if you want to add some serious heat you could use hot Thai chili. This curry sauce will also work well with chicken or white fish.

• Prep time: 10-15mins
• Cooking time: 20mins
• Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 250g. fresh prawns, peeled & intestinal tract removed
• 2 tbsp. grapeseed or sunflower oil
• 1 white or brown onion (150g)
• 100g. baby eggplants, top green stems removed
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 leek, chopped 1/2 inch length
• 1 can. unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/2 cup. organic vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp. fermented Korean red chili paste – gochujang
• 1 tsp. curry powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 red chili, chopped1/2 inch length
• handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley and lemon zest

Rinse the prawns and set aside in room temperature.

Add 2 tablespoons of oil with roughly chopped onion in a pan. Cook over medium high heat for 3-4 minutes or until soften.

Stir in baby eggplants and garlic and turn the heat down to medium.

Add coconut milk, stock, red chili paste, curry powder and black pepper. Let the curry sauce simmer for 12-13 minutes, stir gently.

Add prawns, leek, lemon juice and chili into the curry sauce. Cook it for another 3 minutes, or until prawns turn opaque. Cooking time will depend on the size of prawns, I used tiger prawns so if you are using smaller ones you might want to cook 30 seconds to a minute less or so. Watch the prawns and make sure you don’t overcook them.

Take curry off the heat, add roughly chopped parsley and lemon zest before serving.