Beef curry or curried beef? either way its great.

I have no idea where this craving came from, however it came and I had to address it. As I was driving home from the trailer I was hit with a craving of Curry. I remembered that I had some stewing beef frozen in the deep freeze and pretty much all of the other necessary herbs and spices. I looked up numerous recipes online but so many of them seemed very difficult and or hard to follow. I did however find a pretty basic recipe on allrecipes.com. The only problem was that in all the reviews I read on it said that this was very bland and overall not very exciting. We’ll I took this little old recipe and gave it a shot. Now of course I didn’t make it to the recipe, I definitely changed and added a few things. I think this is still a very manageable dish to make depending on what you have in your cup boards not your skill level.

So here’s the beginning of how I threw this dish together. First, I started by cutting half an onion in to long strips (julienne). Sprinkle with some salt and set aside in a bowl. Take your precut stewing beef chunks or whatever type of beef you would like. This is what I had on hand so it’s what I used. If I wanted to cook this dish faster, I could have used a more tender type of meat. But I had all day so no rush. Anyways, put your meat in a bowl and add the following
1.5 Tbs of Curry powder, 1 Tbs of Cummin, 1 Tbs of Oregano, Tsp of Salt, Tsp of Pepper and 2 Tbs Olive oil. Mix the meat very well, making sure that it is all covered evenly.
In a different bowl, mix 1 Cup of Water, 1 – 5 Oz can of Tomato Paste, ¼ cup of Yogurt. Mix well and set aside.

Turn your stove top burner to medium high heat or 7 on my electric. Get your pan and oil to the proper temp. Throw in the onions and cook until nice and soft and caramelized. Now that the onions are done you can throw in the minced garlic and let that fry for about 30 seconds. Now you want to throw the meat in the pan. If you don’t have a big pan it is okay to add the meat in at a couple different times. Just let the heat return to its high temp and then throw in the rest of the meat and. So fry the meat until browned all over, the onions should look great at this point as well. Now that the meat is browned we can add the shrimp and let them fry for about a minute with the meat and onions. Now we can add the liquid that you mixed and set as side earlier. Pour that into the meats pan and mix, let the dish heat up to boiling. Now add a lid and turn the burner down to low heat or 2 on my electric stove. You want to let this simmer covered for at least 60 minutes, this will make it so that the tough meat will breakdown and become soft and juicy and full of the flavor that it had been simmering in all that time. I would stir this occasionally, about every 10 to 15 minutes or so.

While you are waiting for this most appetizing meal, you can start getting your side dish ready. I decided to make some Quinoa. This can be a pretty tough one to cook, but I have it down,,, I think. So this is how I it all came to. First, add 1 cup of water for every half cup of Quinoa. I added one cup of water to the pot and then the half cup of quinoa. Let this soak for about 10 mins. After 10 mins, turn the burner on to high and bring the pot to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the burner to low and add a good fitting lid. Let this cook on low for exactly 15 mins. After 15 mins, remove the pot from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Do this without removing the lid during this process. After 5 mins, remove the lid and fluff with fork.

Now that the quinoa is cooked and the meat is almost complete you should again taste to make sure the curry is seasoned enough. Mine was a bit tangy because of the tomato paste so what I did was added a bit of brown sugar to offset that soury taste, This worked out very well actually and gave the dish another layer of taste that was great.
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Well I hope you try this dish. Again it is very simple; you just need some spices on hand and some patience. I think this is a fail safe way to attempt a curry dish. Good luck, oh and you can substitute beef for whatever meat or seafood you want. Just adjust your cooking times accordingly. Also please visit me on on Facebook, the page name is wildfirecooking.com. This gives us even more of an opportunity to share ideas and ask for tips or recipe advice.
Take care and keep the fire hot.