Pumpkin Curry from Burma with Tamarind

This delicious and simple pumpkin curry recipe is Burmese in origin and cooks in just 30 minutes making it a perfect midweek dinner!

The Best Quick Squash Curry

This recipe is responsible for a new found love of all things squash and pumpkin.

Pumpkin was always something I avoided, now it is something I cook with all of the time.

This pumpkin curry recipe is very different from many of my usual curries.

Rather than relying on lots of dried spices or seeds, it relies on a simpler set of ingredients.

Inspired by a recipe from a book called Burma by Naomi Duguid it has become a regular feature on our weekly dinner menu.

It cooks in just 30 minutes & it is the dish that I get excited about when pumpkin season approaches.

What Sort of Pumpkin to Use?

I usually make this pumpkin curry with a butternut squash. The primary reason for this is that they are on the smaller side.

As a result of this, there is not too much leftover.

I will probably get two or three meals from a butternut squash and I can not be doing with the same meal over and over!

I will usually call it squash week. Over a few days I will maybe have this, my butternut squash tagine and then possibly my butternut squash pasta.

Did I mention that this recipe costs pennies to make?

Anyway I digress, you can make this with any old squash or pumpkin.

If I am using a larger pumpkin then I will typically roast it off and make a pumpkin puree.

That forms the basis of both my pumpkin risotto recipe which is glorious!

Ingredient Guide.

There is one ingredient that you may not be so familiar with in this recipe.

That is shrimp paste, you should be able to find it in any Asian supermarket.

It is essentially a mix of mashed up shrimp, that is left to ferment. Yes, that sounds awful and it smells pretty ropey, but it adds a delicious savoury intensity to any recipe.

It also gets used a lot in Thai food and features in both my Thai Red Curry Paste and Green Curry Paste.

Other than this the dish is meat free so if you wanted to go vegan you can sub the shrimp paste for fermented bean paste.

My British readers will be more than aware of mint sauce but if you are from the US then you may need a hand.

Mint sauce is a mix of mint, vinegar and sugar.

It is far from being a typical Burmese ingredient, originally the recipe calls for a type of acid, some sugar and mint. So in reality pretty analogous!

To make your own mint sauce grab a big handful of mint, add 50ml of

vinegar, 50 ml of boiling water, then salt and sugar to make it to your taste.

I like to serve this pumpkin curry with coconut rice.