Monday, July 4, 2011

Beef in a Spicy Curry Sauce

I started out trying to make a vindaloo, which is one of my favorite Indian dishes when we go out.  It's a safe food - I know I can or will eat everything that's in there (sometimes I'm even good and skip the potatoes...). 

But, much as I like it, we only eat out once a month or so, and I decided to see if I could recreate my favorite.  Of course, we don't eat a lot of chicken since it's pretty difficult to find pastured chicken here, so I adapted the recipe to be made with beef. This didn't turn out to be what I envisioned, but it tastes great at any rate!  (I adapted from this recipe.)  Hope you enjoy as well.  [It does taste good...really...in spite of the fact that I'm not a very good photographer:)]

Ingredients:
  • 2 lb stew meat
  • Ghee or other appropriate oil
  • 2 yellow onions, peeled and sliced
  • 3" piece of peeled ginger
  • 2 oz peeled garlic
  • 1 tsp fenugreek (methi) seeds
  • 1/8-1/4 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 4 tsp hot chili powder (to taste!) or fresh hot peppers
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 3-4 tsp coconut vinegar
Directions:
  1. Cook beef in the pressure cooker to tenderize.  [You could use another method, but this is both quick and yield really tender beef.]
  2. Meanwhile, heat ghee in a pan.  Once ghee has melted, add onions.  Cook onions until they are very caramelized (a dark brown color -- just before they burn pull 'em off the heat). 
  3. In a small fry pan, add a little ghee.  Once hot, add fenugreek seeds.  Cook until dark brown.  Then, add cumin seeds.  Cook until fenugreek seeds begin to turn black.  Finally, add mustard seeks and cook until funegreek seeds are a dark black.  Remove from heat.
  4. In a food processor (or blender, etc.), combine caramelized onions, ginger, garlic, blackened spice mixture, ground coriander, chili powder, salt, and vinegar.  Blend until a nice paste is formed.
  5. Mix together meat and spices, then cool to marinade, at least half an hour.
  6. When ready to serve, gently heat on the stove.
  7. Serve warm over cauliflower rice (or, for us today, spaghetti squash) and enjoy.

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