If you’re in a new relationship, the aim is to appear interesting to your partner. One way to fake interesting is to cook exotic food. The Three Pee Curry is just your ticket. If you’re very desperate, get some leis and drape them around your living room and you could get some paper umbrellas and whip up some cocktails.

This is a fusion curry, it’s part Indian, part Thai and part Tropical (insert whichever tropical country takes your fancy - personally I always call it the Tropical Hawaiian Curry).

Ingredients
400gm raw green prawns, leave tails on
1/2 small pumpkin, skinned cut into 2cm cubes
1/2 pineapple or small tin of pineapple pieces
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic crushed
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp ground corinader
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp red curry paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp palm sugar
1 tsp lemongrass, chopped
1 can coconut cream
Jasmine rice
Coriander to serve

Heat roughly 1 tbsp of oil over low heat in a pan and add your onions. Cook until soft and starting to change colour. Add garlic and cook for one minute. Add all of the spices and red curry paste, stir and cook for another minute. Add the can of coconut cream then add the fish sauce, palm sugar and lemongrass and stir. Add in your pumpkin cubes and reduce heat to a simmer for roughly 10-15 mins. If your curry sauce starts to dry out at some water. Meanwhile you can get the rice ready by steaming or boiling or whatever method you use.

Test the pumpkin to see if it’s cooked. If it is add the prawns and pineapple with any pineapple juice and turn up the heat. You want to cook the prawns quickly, so mid- high heat is best. Stir and watch. When they have changed colour and curled up they are cooked - it should take around three minutes.

Serve the three pee curry on top of the jasmine rice and top with coriander. Sitting it next to your tropical Hawaiian punch and you’re exotic!

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If your fella is English, like mine, he loves a good curry and constantly complains about the lack of good Indian curries in Australia. As a special treat I’ll cook him an ‘English’ curry.

You have to love a good creamy, fat full dish. Some of you may think I’ve ruined it by sneaking in eggplants, but I’m trying to increase our vegetable intake and didn’t fancy cooking a side dish. You can’t take any shortcuts with the fat in this dish. The ghee gives it the butter taste. It’s all or nothing…

This will serve 4.

Ingredients
2 single chicken breasts (about 800g) chopped into 2cm cubes
4 cloves garlic
3cm ginger
a handful of cashews
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon chilli
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon
1 tin (400g) tomatoes
2 tablespoons cream
1/2 cup coconut cream
3 tablespoons ghee
1 onion, sliced
2 skinny eggplant, sliced
corriander for garnish
boiled rice for serving

Method
Put everything up to and including the coconut cream into the blender and blend until smooth. Add to a plastic bowl with your chopped chicken. Cover in put in the fridge for at least half an hour, if not an hour.

After your marination time, heat ghee in heavy based pan (or big fry pan). Add onion and eggplant and fry on low heat for about 5 - 10 minutes. Add the giant bowl of marinated chicken and keep on low heat. You’ll want to stir it around for the first 5 minutes to encourage the chicken to change colour, after that put a lid on it and keep it simmering on very low heat. Cook for roughly another 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook your rice. When all is ready serve the butter chicken on steamed rice with corriander sprinkled over the top. Take your special treat one step further and serve with a can of Carling lager.

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It’s summer and as I live near the beach I often feel a bit tropical and Hawaiian. As my moods are reflected in my cooking and today was a beautiful Bondi day, I felt the urge to create a tropical curry with the fruit of the moment, mango.

Ingredients
200g red snapper, cut into bite sizes
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
oil
half pumpkin cut into little bite size pieces
1 can 400ml coconut milk
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons fish sauce
4 lime leaves, cut into slivers
1 mango cut into slices
coriander
1 1/2 cups jasmine rice

Instructions
Put a bit of oil in a heavy based pan, add the curry paste and fry for roughly a minute until the paste has released it’s fragrance. Add turmeric and ground coriander, stir for a few seconds to release more fragrance. Add coconut milk and stir for a minute. Add water, fish sauce, lime leaves, mango and pumpkin. Slowly bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 mins until pumpkin is cooked through.

At this time start to cook some rice in boiling water. The rice should only take you 10 mins if the water is already boiling. A tip I learned from the geek is to wash the rice in boiling water (or hot water from the tap) in a sieve once it’s finished cooked. It always delivers great rice.

When pumpkin is cooked, add fish and cook for under 5 minutes.

Serve on rice with coriander sprinkled over the top.

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