coconut, beef and potato curry

I was flipping through a Christmas edition of an old Jamie Oliver magazine I had kicking around when this recipe caught my eye.  Meltingly tender brisket in a flavourful coconut curry? I’m all in.  I made a few minor adjustments and didn’t use any chillies because my kids like to complain about food being “spicy” lately and I just didn’t want to deal with the drama.  I’m sure this would be extra good with some heat to it but even without, it is really, really delicious and the brisket really is so tender.  It does take basically an afternoon to slow cook, but it is so worth it.

900 grams beef brisket, cut into bite-sized cubes / 2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced / 5 cloves garlic, minced, 1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, minced / 3 tbsp canola oil / 2 cinnamon sticks / 2 star anise / 1 tsp black peppercorns / 5 whole cloves / 1 tsp ground cardamom / 1 tbsp garam masala / 1 tbsp medium curry powder / 1 tbsp ground coriander / 1 400 ml can of full-fat coconut milk / 1 x 400 grams tin of whole tomatoes / 600 grams potatoes / sea salt to taste / (optional: 4 green chillies, sliced)

Preheat the oven to 300 F.  Heat up your oil in a dutch oven over medium heat and then add in the sliced onions, cooking them for about 10 minutes or until they’re all soft and translucent.  Then add in the ginger, garlic, cloves, star anise, cinnamon sticks, cardamom and peppercorns (and chillies if you’re using them).  Mix in 200 ml of water and bring it to a boil.

Turn the heat up to high and season the cubes of brisket with a bit of salt.  Add in the beef and mix to coat the beef with the onion-y spice mixture.

Next, add in the coconut milk, the whole tomatoes (including the juice), garam masala, ground coriander and curry powder.  Add in a bit of salt to taste and then switch off the burner and pop the lid onto your dutch oven.

Place the dutch oven into your preheated oven for 2.5 hours.  When that time is up, peel and cut up your potatoes into bite-sized cubes and add to the curry.  Give it a bit of a stir to get the potatoes all submerged and then put the lid back on and put back into the oven for a further 1.5 hours.

Your whole house should smell amazing at this point!  And after being patient for the past 4 hours, your curry is ready.   The recipe in the magazine has this as a one-pot wonder but for me, rice is life so I had to serve it with some basmati rice.  Turned out amazing and Rock has already requested that I make it again soon!

pakistani beef curry

Our friend dropped off some delicious beef and okra curry a little while ago and I just had to get the recipe off her.  I can’t get my hands on any okra so I decided to just skip it and no surprise, it’s still a delicious and very flavourful curry!

500 grams stewing beef (ideally chuck roast) cut into bite-sized cubes / 2 large yellow onions / 1 tin of whole tomatoes / 5 tbsp canola oil / 4 cloves of garlic / about a thumb-size knob of ginger / 2 cinnamon sticks / 2 tsp cumin seeds / 6 cardamom pods / 1 tsp ground turmeric / 1/4 to 1/2 tsp chili powder (adjust to how much heat you want) / 1 heaped tsp sea salt / 1 and 1/2 tbsp garam masala

First for a bit of prep by thinly slicing the onions and finely mince the garlic and the ginger. Heat up the oil in a large pot or over medium-high heat and then add in the onions, the cinnamon sticks, and cumin seeds.  Pop open the cardamom pods and toss those in too.

Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions have gone a bit brown and caramelized.

Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes.  Then add in the tin of tomatoes, the salt, turmeric, chili and garam masala.  Let it simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Turn the heat up to high and add the beef.  Stir to coat all the beef cubes and let it cook for about one minute.

Add 2 cups of water and once it has come to a boil, turn the heat down to a simmer.

Put the lid on and let the curry slowly simmer for 2 hours, giving it stir occasionally.

Turned out really yummy and we just served this with some basmati rice.

 

hashed beef rice (hayashi rice)

My sister’s visiting and had us watching this quirky Japanese show on netflix last night called Samurai Gourmet.  The show is full of slowly panning close up shots of food (basically food porn) and made me want to go back to Japan sooo bad.  And it made Rock want to eat everything sooo bad.  Anyway, hashed beef rice was featured in one of the episodes and Rock and my sister immediately said they wanted to eat that.  So of course, we decided we’d have to do so.  Since none of us had even heard of this dish, let alone eaten it, I had to do a bit of research.  What it is is a popular western-style Japanese dish that’s basically a beef stew that’s served with rice.  This recipe I adapted from one I found on norecipes.com and it turned out delicious! We had no idea how it would taste but it was really, really good.  Will definitely be making this again!

Serves 4 to 5.

~ 750 grams beef chuck or roast (I used a bottom round roast)  /  3 yellow onions  /  4 cloves garlic  /  3 handfuls of cremini mushrooms  /  2 cups red wine (I used a Cabernet Sauvignon)  /  2 cups beef stock  /  4 tbsp tomato paste  /  ~ 1 tbsp grapeseed oil (or your choice of cooking oil)  /  1 tbsp worcestershire sauce  /  1/2 tbsp soy sauce  /  1 tbsp sweet paprika  /  2 bay leaves  /  2 whole cloves  /  4 tbsp butter  /  1/3 cup all-purpose flour  /  salt and pepper

First, for the prep.  Mince the garlic. Halve and then very thinly slice your onions into thin half-moons.  Next, cut up your beef into roughly 3/4 inch cubes and season with salt and pepper.  In a dutch oven or large heavy pot, heat up your cooking oil over medium-high heat.  In batches, sear off the beef on all sides until browned.  Scoop the seared beef out and into a bowl to set aside.

Turn the heat down to medium.  Now add the onions, garlic and 1 tbsp of butter to the dutch oven.  Lightly season with some salt.  Give it a bit of a stir and then slap the lid on for about 10 minutes.  Take off the lid and slowly caramelize the onions, stirring often.  The recipe I was referring to said to cook the onions for an hour but I was too impatient for that and gave it maybe about 20 minutes.

Next, turn the heat down to low and add back in the beef and the rest of the ingredients except for the butter and flour.

Now to let everything simmer away for 2 hours.  I know it’s a long time, but you want the meat to get nice and tender.  Partially cover with the lid but if you notice that the liquid has cooked down quite a bit, pop the lid back on.  I put the lid back on mine after about an hour and a half.  When the stew is almost ready, make a simple roux.  In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter and then stir in the flour.  Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Stir in the roux, a spoonful at a time so you can thicken it to your liking.  I didn’t use up all the roux.  And then you’re done!  We had it served with some sushi rice.

barbacoa beef (in an instant pot)

It seems like everyone’s raving about the Instant Pot lately (well, my 2 friends that have one and…the internet) but I needed a new rice cooker anyway so we decided to try out the Instant Pot instead.  So far we’ve only made a few things in it including well, rice, and this dish, but we really like it.  This recipe is adapted from the combo of 2 copycat Chipotle barbacoa beef recipes that I found online. (I couldn’t decide which recipe I liked better!) It’s shredded beef that’s been braised in a sauce of chipotle peppers and various spices and it’s really yummy!  We’ve only eaten at Chipotle a handful of times but I remember liking their beef so I thought this would be a good place to start.  So we made this in the Instant Pot but you could instead cook it in a dutch oven on the stove on low heat; it would just take probably at least 8 hours instead of 1!

2-3 lb beef roast  /  1 tbsp grape seed oil (or other cooking oil of your choice)  /  4 cloves of garlic /  2 chipotles in adobe sauce /  juice of 1 lime  /  1 tsp ground cumin  /  1 tsp oregano /  1/2 tsp ground cloves  /  1 tsp onion powder  /  1 cup water  /  1/4 cup apple cider vinegar  /  2 tsp salt (or to taste)  /  1 tsp freshly ground black pepper  /  1 tbsp tomato paste  /   3 bay leaves

Using a hand blender or a regular blend, puree the garlic, chipotles, lime juice, cumin, oregano, cloves, onion powder, water, vinegar, salt, pepper and tomato paste until you get a smooth sauce.  Cut up your roast into roughly 3 inch cubes.  With the Instant Pot, set it to ‘Saute’ and add the grape seed oil when hot and sautee the beef until browned on all sides.

Add the pureed sauce and the bay leaves and then clamp the lid on.  Set the Instant Pot to ‘Manual’ and choose ‘high pressure’ and let it cook away for 55 minutes.  Apparently you can release the pressure in the Instant Pot either manually or you can let it do it by itself slowly but I was impatient so we did it manually.

Take the beef out and using 2 forks, simply shred it and then add back in some of the sauce. This was my first time cooking with a pressure cooker and I was pretty impressed; it’s cool to be able to cook something that usually takes many hours in a fraction of the time.

Anyway, the beef turned out great and really tender.  We slapped together some quesadillas with the beef and monterey jack cheese and served it with a quick guacamole, some greek yogurt and cilantro and since then, Rock’s polished off the leftovers. So, success!

 

chinese new year: gai lan and beef with garlic

Gai lan, sometimes referred to as ‘Chinese broccoli’ though I have no idea why since it doesn’t really resemble broccoli to me, is probably my favourite Chinese vegetable.  You can sometimes find it at Superstore but if not you can find it at Ngoy Hoa in Regina.

~ 1 and 1/2 bunches of gai lan  /  ~ 500 grams of beef (it really doesn’t matter how much you use and you can use whatever cut of meat you’d like.  Alternatively, you can just omit the beef altogether.)  /  ~ 6 cloves of garlic  /  ~ 3/4 cup chicken stock  /  2 tsp corn starch  /  a few dashes of white pepper  /  salt (to taste)  /  ~ 1 tsp sugar

Trim about 1 inch off the ends of the gai lan and cut into roughly 2 or 3 inch long pieces.  Thinly slice up the beef and mince the garlic.  In a small bowl combine the chicken stock, sugar, white pepper and a couple pinches of salt.   In another small bowl, combine the cornstarch with about a couple tbsp of water to use as a thickener.  Heat up a bit of canola oil in a wok over medium-high to high heat and add the garlic, gai lan and beef, stir-frying for about 5 minutes or until the gai lan stalks have begun to soften up.  Stir in the chicken stock mixture and bring it to a boil.  Then add in the cornstarch mixture and mix together until the sauce has thickened up a bit and everything has that glossy look.  Season with a bit more salt to taste.

I used a strip sirloin steak cut but I found it kind of tough so next time I’ll go with a more fatty/marbled cut of beef.  Otherwise, gai lan is best when it’s not overcooked and the stems still have some crunch to them.  Spread the love of gai lan around!