Coconut Prawn Curry from the Tomb Raider Cookbook

After Spanakopita, the next recipe I made from Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide was Coconut Prawn Curry. As the book says, curries originate from India and spread through the world via shipping routes, with this particular recipe taking inspiration from the Andaman Sea. Lara visits that location in Tomb Raider: Underworld, more specifically boarding a ship off the coast of Thailand. She lays waste to the crew of mercenaries aboard with Thor's hammer as she confronts her nemesis, Natla, in order to demand the location of the Norse underworld of Helheim.

The coast of Thailand is explored earlier in Underworld, and there are plenty of Thai recipes in the book that I intend to explore. I thought the curry was a logical choice as my next dish due to its simplicity and complex flavors. Hours ahead of cooking, I took an entire bag, constituting a pound, of shrimp out of the freezer to thaw. The recipe asks you to have 4 cups of cooked rice (2 uncooked); I only cooked 2 cups (1 uncooked) since I was making it for two people. I cooked mine with salt and butter in the water, and also rinsed the rice first. The cookbook doesn't tell you to do that, but I chose to.

I made a mistake when cutting the vegetables, although you can't see it in the above photo. You're supposed to slice a red pepper thinly. I forgot this and accidentally diced one of the halves. Ultimately that wasn't a big deal. The steps for making the curry were as you'd expect from a recipe: start by frying your aromatics in oil along with the curry paste, then add your liquids, and poach your shrimp and snow peas until cooked before finishing with cilantro, lime zest and juice.

I didn't get lucky with my limes. I had two when I was making this recipe and for some reason, they couldn't be grated. My microplane grater was not able to take the zest off the fruit until I pressed and dragged hard, and even then it was tough. They must have been too soft for it. Anyway, that's not the recipe's fault. There was some concern that the curry would be extremely spicy because it uses 1/4 cup of red curry paste. I didn't find it overly spicy at all. It had more of a tangy-sour quality to it, like I'd added tamarind paste in. All in all, I had dinner ready in less than 20 minutes. Certainly much faster than Spanakopita.

It was delicious! Definitely a potential favorite, and it had the quality of something I'd get at my favorite Thai restaurant. The difference was, I made it myself! If I can do it, anyone can.

If you want to make this recipe for Coconut Prawn Curry yourself, you can find it in Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide.