Shrimp Rajah, or Curried Shrimp

We got a wildly good deal on some South Carolina shrimp this week. Since I am (apparently) a crazy person, my first thought was what retro recipe calls for shrimp? Turns out, not too many of them. (I assume shrimp used to be far less commonly available in non-coastal states, which pretty much rules it out of the “popular ingredients for advertisers to use.”)

But French’s came through, trying to convince us that their curry powder is the best way to prepare this seasonal bounty. Or rather, currie powder…

CURRIED SHRIMP

1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup French’s Onion Flakes
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons French’s Currie Powder
1 cup chicken stock
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice
4 cups (about) shrimp (cooked)

Melt butter, add onion flakes, and cook until soft. Stir in flour, seasonings. Add stock; cook until thick, stirring constantly. Add milk, lemon juice, shrimp. Heat thoroughly. Yield: 8 servings. (Chicken may be substituted for shrimp.)

Really, the only interesting things in this picture are the bowls with curry powder and shrimp in them. The rest is just for the roux, which would be highly unremarkable if not for the spice and protein.

Sauté your onions in an absurd amount of butter. Pretend you aren’t drooling.

The nice thing about having to sauté something in the butter before completing the roux is that your butter is definitely hot enough when you add the flour. It thickened up very quickly.

When I added the curry, it turned a funky brownish yellow color.

Luckily the broth and milk smoothed everything out, and it was ready to have shrimp dropped in!

The original recipe suggested serving the curried shrimp with “chutney, chopped bacon, pineapple and coconut.” I had noodles.

The sauce itself was smooth, mellow, and really tasty. The shrimp was actually less impressive, although it’s hard to ruin really good shrimp. Fortunately, there was far too much sauce for the amount of shrimp we had, so the leftovers went on top of some broccoli and chicken — which was actually a bit better! As sauces go, this was a winner and worth keeping in the repertoire, just try it on something besides shrimp.

Thanks to thenoirkitten on Flickr for posting this and other cool retro recipe ads.