Think Indian food is complicated? Meet this creamy shrimp dish
This sunny, creamy dish has an Indian flavor profile, with garlic, clarified butter, a bright spice blend and yogurt. If you happen to have ghee in your pantry already, you can make this recipe that much faster.
The clarifying seems like a cheffy step, but it is, in fact, an easy one. Here's why you want to do it: By removing the milk solids (proteins) and simultaneously cooking off the water in this unsalted butter, you will be left with a golden liquid that adds buttery flavor to this dish. And you will have greatly reduced or eliminated the risk of burning it, which can happen so quickly in a hot pan.
In testing this recipe, we discovered a few things:
• Using full-fat, 5-percent Greek yogurt (Fage brand) made for a deliciously thick and clingy sauce. Both whole milk and cream go into this kind of yogurt, accounting for the richness.
• No matter how deep your pan is, the whirring of an immersion blender will spit and spray the sauce as effectively as a lawn sprinkler. You can skip the blending step and go with a chunkier sauce or partially cover the pan as you work. You can transfer it to a blender or food processor, too, if you don't mind the extra cleanup.
• The few minutes it takes to infuse your clarified butter with the shrimp tails gives the whole dish a shrimpy flavor boost.
Serve with roasted red peppers and a salad, or over basmati rice.