I found this wonderful recipe on Kevin from Closet Cooking‘s site and it looked so good. Since I absolutely love shrimp and Thai food I figured I would give it a try. This recipe calls for something called Kaffir Lime leaves. This is not your ordinary lime. Kaffir limes are indigenous to areas of Thailand, India, Malaysia, Laos and Indonesia. It’s leaves are used in many Southeast Asian dishes. You can read more about the Kaffir lime here. They are not easy to find unless you live near an Asian market. Even though I live in New York City, I don’t live right near any Asian food markets so I had to order these leaves online in dried form. My supermarket does carry many Asian staples but unfortunately not the Kaffir leaves. I got them from Thai Kitchen‘s website. The prices are reasonable, but the shipping is not cheap because it goes by weight and distance and since their headquarters are in California and I am in New York, the shipping fees were almost $12. I also ordered red and green curry paste which added to the weight. The leaves, as you can see from my picture, come in a nice size jar so they will last you a while.
Thai Lemon Shrimp
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 2 pounds shrimp, will be about 1 1/2 lbs after they are shelled and devained
- 1/3 cup sweet chili sauce
- 1 lemon, juice and zest
- 3-4 kaffir lime leaves, sliced or 1 lime, zest
- 1 tbsp. fish sauce
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tsp. brown sugar
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
Directions
In a large bowl marinate the shrimp in the sweet chili sauce, lemon juice, lemon zest, kaffir lime leaves, chili sauce, fish sauce, garlic and sugar for no more than 30 minutes.* (see note)
Heat a large pot over medium heat.
Add the shrimp along with the marinade and the coconut milk and simmer until the shrimp are cooked, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat, place in a serving dish and add the cilantro. I served it over Jasmine rice.
*Note: Whenever you marinate anything in any type of citrus juice, don’t marinate it longer than a half hour as the acid in the citrus will start to cook the food.
Enjoy!
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