Beef Curry with Rice

Peanuts and meat

Beef curry works best with a ready-made red or yellow paste sold in sealed 50 g sachets. Such a paste already contains nearly all the spices and aromatics you need: chili, garlic, lemongrass and ginger, kaffir lime, Thai basil and so on. As a rule, the heat of these pastes is quite moderate, so there is nothing to fear. On top of that, we always serve the dish with sliced fresh chili, which is very tasty.

For the beef, shoulder or the rump (hind part) works best, since it has little fat and connective tissue.

1. Fry the peanuts. Buy them raw and unsalted so you can control the flavor and the roasting yourself. Pour the peanut oil into a skillet (if you don’t have it, use refined olive or sunflower oil) and heat over medium heat. Add the raw shelled peanuts and fry, stirring often, until fragrant and lightly browned. Transfer the fried peanuts to a saucer.

   

2. Fry the beef. Cut the meat into large pieces and add them to the hot oil left in the skillet. Turning the pieces, fry the meat over high heat on all sides until it has a golden-brown crust. Then transfer the pieces to a plate.

   

Curry sauce

3. Fry the curry paste. Open the sachet and squeeze the contents into the skillet. If you like, seed a fresh chili, chop it coarsely and add it to the paste. Fry the curry paste for 2-3 minutes, stirring, until it softens, since it contains some soy or peanut oil.

   If you like, add a little paprika. It improves the color of the finished dish when you use red curry paste. Or add dry curry powder, which has a pleasant yellow-orange shade and goes very well with yellow curry.

   

4. Combine the meat, peanuts and pineapple. Return the fried beef and peanuts to the skillet, add the canned or fresh pineapple cut into large slices, and 2-3 kaffir lime leaves if you have them (the paste usually contains this ingredient already). Fry everything together for 2-3 minutes.

   

5. Pour in the coconut cream and simmer. You can replace the cream with coconut milk, one can is enough. If you use cream, add half a cup of hot water (100 ml). Stir so the cream spreads evenly and salt lightly to taste. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, over medium heat for 35-40 minutes, until the beef is tender. Stir from time to time.

   

6. Cook the rice. While the dish simmers, cook a full cup of round rice. Either fluffy or round sticky rice works.

7. Thicken the sauce if needed. If the beef curry seems too runny, mix a little cornstarch with cold water and stir it into the sauce to thicken it to the right consistency. After that, let the sauce simmer for 2-3 minutes. Before serving, remove the kaffir lime leaves from the sauce.

   

Serving

8. Divide the rice and meat among plates. Spoon the cooked rice onto plates, top with slices of meat and pineapple, and pour the sauce over. Cut the lime into quarters separately, and slice the chili thinly on the diagonal, seeds included. Tear the cilantro, mint and green onion roughly with your fingers. Serve the dish hot.

   

   You can cook pork, duck or chicken the same way, adjusting the cooking time. The flavor can be changed from medium-hot to sweet and sour by replacing the chili with lime juice and brown sugar. Traditionally we don’t use vegetables here, although a few small mushrooms would be quite appropriate.