Shrimp Mango Curry - Cooking from Coconut Lagoon's Cookbook


shrimp mango curry in a dark blue homemade wheel thrown bowl, accompanied by rice to the top left corner in a turquoise seagreen bowl and in the top right corner a small white speckled pottery bowl filled with pappadams
Shrimp Mango Curry - from Coconut Lagoon's cookbook with basmati rice and pappadams in my wheel thrown bowls.

Finally cooked up this delicious Shrimp Mango Curry from Chef Joe Thottungal's cookbook Coconut Lagoon. Chef Thottungal's restaurant, Coconut Lagoon is located in Ottawa - which just so happens to be where we are living at the moment. I first experienced Chef Joe's delicious cooking when I came to Ottawa for the Food Bloggers Conference in 2018. When I moved here in February, we went to Coconut Lagoon for dinner a few times bringing family and friends. Needless to say, I was excited when I found out that Chef Joe was launching his first cookbook.


Dan and I had the pleasure of attending the Coconut Lagoon cookbook launch party, which of course featured amazing dishes from the cookbook. The cookbook is about Chef Joe's cooking journey that led him to open a restaurant in Ottawa, which celebrates the food from his homeland, Kerala. 


Since I had eaten the Shrimp Mango Curry several times at Coconut Lagoon's restaurant, I decided that this would be the recipe I started with first. Most of the spices I found at Bulk Barn, which worked for me as I didn't want a huge bag of red chili powder, fenugreek seeds or coriander. With the exception of the curry leaves and black mustard seeds, I picked up all my spices from Bulk Barn. For the curry leaves, I made my way to Thana which is a store specializing in South Asian & Caribbean groceries on Bank St. As for the black mustard seeds, since I wasn't quite ready to commit to a huge bag of that, I picked up about 2 teaspoons worth from the Herb & Spice Store across the street from Thana.

Last but not least, the mango! I have never had green mango before and who would have thought but Farm Boy actually carried them. 
The instructions for this Shrimp Mango Curry (page 13) are very straightforward. Once you have your shrimp (about 1 lb), green mango, and all the spices than you are set! Since I had purchased deveined shrimp, all I needed to do was defrost and shell them. Then I marinated them in 1.5 tsp of fresh lime juice and set it in the fridge. After that, I set out to collect the rest of the ingredients I was missing (curry leaves & black mustard seeds). 
Shrimp to be marinated in lime juice.
Chef Joe's recipe relies on using two pans (one for the spices and then later on a deeper skillet for cooking the rest of the curry. In the first pan, he uses a method called tempering for the spices, which is a traditional method to extract optimal flavours from the spices. This involves the pan being at high heat initially and then turning down the heat right before cooking the seeds. First mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds are tempered. Then onions, garlic, ginger and curry leaves are added in.


Finally, the rest of the spices - tumeric, coriander, and chili powder. 

Next, the shrimp and mango slices are added in and sautéed for a few minutes before the coconut milk is added.

Once the shrimp turns pink, the shrimp mango curry is done! It really does come together quite quickly! Definitely have pan splash guard ready as things will get hot! 

We had our shrimp mango curry with basmati rice (following Chef Joe's recipe - page 156) and some pappadams! Pappadams are essentially lentil crackers and these ones are made super quick! I just take them out of their package (which I also got from Thana), line the microwave with a paper towel and nuke several of them for 40 seconds.

This shrimp mango curry is so tasty! It was surprising how sweet the green mango was, but that added to the flavour of the curry. We did end up adding more coconut milk to our dish as we wanted a slightly saucier curry.

Go check out this cookbook and try this Shrimp Mango Curry for yourself. Or for an easy place to start, the chai is a good one or even the lentils. I am also looking forward to cooking up the Cauliflower Masala and the Eggplant Masala, mainly because I saw yesterday that all of those ingredients were also on sale at Farm Boy. Oh and certainly their Butter Chicken recipe.

Also I now have permission to publish the Shrimp Mango Curry. Here it is!

Shrimp Mango Curry 

  • 1 lb medium shrimp, shelled and deveined
  • 1  1/2 tsp fresh lime juice
  • 1 Tbsp coconut oil
  • 1  1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
  • Pinch of fenugreek seeds
  • 1 Onion, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
  • 3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
  • 1 (1-inch) piece ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 20 curry leaves
  • 1 tsp ground tumeric
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/2 tsp chili powder
  • 1/2 cup sliced green, unripe mangoes
  • 1/2 cup coconut milk
  • 1 tsp salt, plus extra for taste
In a small bowl, combine shrimp and lime juice. Cover and marinate in the fridge for 1 hour.

Have a splash guard and measured spices nearby. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat until nearly smoking. Immediately reduce heat to medium. 

You can test the heat of the oil by dropping in a couple of seeds. The oil is at the correct temperature when the seeds crackle, but do not burn. 

Add must seeds and temper for a few seconds, until they stop popping (Cover with the splash guard, if needed).

Add fenugreek seeds and temper for another 30 seconds.

Add onions, garlic, ginger and curry leaves and sauté for 2 minutes, until fragrant.


Add tumeric, coriander, and chili powder and stir for 1 minute, until the raw smell is cooked off. Transfer to a heavy-bottomed skillet.

Increase heat to high. Add shrimp and mango slices and sauté for 1 minute. Pour in coconut milk, bring to a boil, and cook for 1 minute, or until shrimp turns pink. add salt and adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve with rice and parathas.  



Excerpts from Coconut Lagoon by Joe Thottungal. Copyright © 2019 Coconut Lagoon. Published by Figure1 Publishing Inc. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

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