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Thai Green Prawn Curry with Broccoli

Thirty minutes, one pan, and lighter than the takeaway. Fry the paste in the thick coconut cream first; that is where the flavour comes from.

Dinner

30

Serves 2

Thai green prawn curry with broccoli and red pepper in a bowl, with brown rice and lime

Ingredients

  • 250g/9oz raw peeled king prawns (shrimp)
  • 2 tbsp Thai green curry paste (check the label if you avoid gluten)
  • 1 tin (can) of light coconut milk (400ml/1⅔ cups), unshaken
  • 200g/7oz tenderstem broccoli (broccolini), halved lengthways
  • 1 red pepper (bell pepper), sliced
  • 1 tsp fish sauce (check the label if you avoid gluten)
  • 1 lime
  • A handful of coriander (cilantro), and Thai basil if you can find it
  • 1 tsp neutral oil
  • 120g/4oz/⅔ cup brown rice, to serve

Method

  1. Put the rice on first; brown rice takes 25 minutes, so it sets the pace.
  2. Open the coconut milk without shaking it and spoon the thick cream from the top into a wide pan with the oil. Heat it until it bubbles and starts to look oily, then add the curry paste and fry it in the cream for two minutes, stirring, until it smells strongly fragrant. Light coconut milk often has only a thin layer of cream. If yours has none, fry the paste in the oil with 3 tbsp of the coconut milk until it thickens and smells fragrant. Frying the paste is what turns it from sharp and raw into rounded; stirring it straight into the liquid is why homemade curries taste thin.
  3. Add the rest of the coconut milk and the fish sauce and bring to a simmer. Add the broccoli and pepper and cook for four minutes.
  4. Add the prawns and cook for two to three minutes, only until they turn pink and curl. Overcooked prawns turn rubbery, and they keep cooking in the hot sauce after you take it off the heat.
  5. Taste, adding a squeeze of lime and more fish sauce if it needs it. Scatter with coriander and serve with the rice and lime wedges.

Why it works

A takeaway Thai green curry with rice can easily pass 1,000 calories, most of it from full-fat coconut milk and white rice. This version is around 550, with 30g of protein, and it is on the table in the time a delivery takes to arrive.

Prawns are almost pure protein and low in fat. They also bring selenium, iodine and some zinc, though far less zinc than oysters or red meat; they are a useful contributor rather than a zinc source. The cholesterol in prawns worries some people, but for most, dietary cholesterol has a modest effect on blood cholesterol compared with saturated fat.

Which brings in the coconut milk. Coconut fat is mostly saturated, which is why the recipe uses the light version: it has well under half the fat of full-fat coconut milk and keeps most of the texture, especially once the paste has been fried in the cream at the top of the tin.

Brown rice and broccoli make this a steadier choice than a takeaway: with protein and fibre in the same bowl, the glucose response is slower and lower than with white rice. It is not tagged for blood sugar, because a bowl still carries about 60g of carbohydrate; use less rice if that is your priority. Steadier blood sugar matters for both audiences: insulin resistance tracks with lower testosterone in men and with more difficult symptoms through perimenopause: menopause and diabetes risk.

If you have prawns in the freezer and want something even faster, the garlic prawn and spinach stir-fry takes twelve minutes.