Malaysian shrimp with curry leaves, tamarind and jasmine rice

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a shrimp recipe. Something new. Something different. Something I'd never come across before. I found this mouth-watering malaysian recipe online which I immediately decided to try. I tweaked it a bit: used frozen shrimp without the heads, replaced fresh chillies with pepper flakes and added green onions. It was so good I'm sharing it with you here :) Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS
- 1 lb raw large shrimp, shell-on (next time, I'll use fresh whole shrimp with heads, it should give it an amazing taste!)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons oil
- leaves from 4 sprigs of curry leaves
- a sprinkle of red pepper flakes (or a few fresh bird's eye chillies -if you can take that kind of heat-, chopped)
- 4 small shallots, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate (if you can't find it in stores, you can make your own -here's my recipe-)
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 2 cups jasmine rice
- 3 cups of water

RECIPE
- bring the water to a boil and add the rice. lower the heat and cover. cook for 15 minutes exactly.
- during this time, pat dry the shrimp and sprinkle with salt.
- heat 3 tbsp of oil in a wok.

- add salted shrimp and curry leaves and fry until shrimp changes color and gets slightly golden. They should not be completely cooked at that stage, they will cook again later. 

- Reserve in a bowl.

- add the remaining tbsp of oil in the wok and saute the shallots, garlic and pepper for one minute.

- add the reserved shrimp and leaves, turmeric, sugar and tamarind concentrate.

- stir fry for a few minutes to cook the turmeric and finish cooking the shrimp. Reserve in a bowl.

- serve over perfectly cooked jasmine rice, and sprinkle with sliced green onions.

- Bon app'!