This was the first recipe I posted away back in 2012! I thought I’d start with a family favourite, Dad’s and now Hubby’s too. It’s the curry I usually cook for friends, and have been since Uni which is probably when I wheedled the recipe out of Mum. Unfortunately, the accompanying photo was similarly a first and absolutely awful… I’ve been meaning to get a better shot and finally did tonight, which seemed as good an excuse as any to repost it 🙂
This curry is closest to a madras, both for flavour and heat. Obviously the generic name of “curry” isn’t ideal, but this is an Anglicised curry rather than an authentic one, and is a total cheat for the use of ready made curry paste. But it’s properly delicious and, at the end of the day, isn’t that what’s most important?
Don’t be put off by the 4 hour cooking time. Not only does it make for meltingly tender chunks of beef, but you do all the work in the afternoon and just leave the curry to do its own thing while you do yours, and come supper time all that’s left to do is dish it up. Nom!
If you have enough leftover it freezes really well, except for the potatoes. I usually split the curry in two at the two hour mark, before I add the potatoes, and freeze half for another day. Just pop in a new batch of potatoes when start reheating the curry.
And I always add too many potatoes so that I can pop the leftovers into a bowl with a little sauce and keep them in the fridge to nibble on. They’re ridiculously moreish cold (I actually prefer them cold to hot!) and I’m lucky if they last 48 hours! And if you just have sauce left and no meat, or none to speak of, the sauce lends itself really well to being scooped up with a chapati, so still worth freezing and maybe having a lazy Tiffin style lunch one day with some pop in the oven Indian starters. Moar nom!
- 500g cubed stewing steak or skirt
- 2 medium white onions, roughly chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 thumb size piece of ginger, peeled and grated
- 2-3 tbsp madras curry paste (I recommend Patak’s)
- 1 level tsp chilli powder (optional and/or to taste)
- 1 beef stock cube/pot
- 5 or 6 potatoes that suit boiling
- Cooking oil
- Boiled white rice (I like Thai fragrant myself!)
- Plus Mango chutney if you like it, it’s entirely optional but I can’t eat it without!
- Pop the onions into the food processor and blitz until they are almost pureed. This is the base of the sauce so needs to be almost liquid.
- Mince the garlic, and grate the ginger (fifi's top tip - If you freeze the ginger, it grates really really easily and without that fibrous stuff, as well as keeping for longer than if just in the fridge).
- Heat some oil in the pot, and on a high heat fry off the cubed meat in batches so as not to crowd the pot. Once the meat is browned and sealed, remove to a bowl.
- In the same pot, pour in enough cooking oil to entirely cover the base and then some, and turn the heat down to medium/low.
- Fry the onions with a sprinkle of salt for 5 minutes.
- Add the ginger and garlic and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Add the stock cube, curry paste and chilli powder and cook for another 5 minutes.
- While you’re on the last 5 minutes, put the kettle on to boil.
- Add the steak back into the pot and then add enough boiling water to cover the meat. Bring to the boil before turning the heat down to simmer.
- Season, put a lid on it, and leave it for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Just before the 2 hours are up, peel the potatoes and cut them into half (or quarters if they’re large). Once the curry reaches the 2 hour mark pop the potatoes in, put the lid back on, and leave for another 2 hours. Check on it and give it a stir every now and then. Taste and season if needed, and add more chilli powder if there isn’t enough of a kick. Hubby likes to bash the meat down throughout the cooking time, so that it almost collapses and becomes part of the sauce.
- This is an oily curry, so expect it to have a slick. If anything, you might need to add a little more oil towards the end to make it have that slightly oily look. If the sauce looks too watery add a little gravy mix – I’ve never done this myself, but my Mum swears by it.
- Serve with rice. I highly recommend trying some mango chutney too 😉
