There is a fabulous Thai restaurant close to where I live, that serves the most delicious Thai food. It's a tiny, BYO restaurant, that is conveniently placed next door to a pub, so you often see diners disappearing next door to grab a pint!
During lockdown, I decided to try and recreate their beef massaman curry. I used a ready-made paste as the basis for the curry sauce, enhancing the flavour further with the addition of traditional Thai ingredients such as fish sauce and kaffir lime leaves.
After a long slow cook, the beef falls apart, and it's delicious topped with roasted peanuts and coriander and served with sticky Jasmine rice.
2 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 large onion
700g diced braising steak
400g waxy potatoes
4 tablespoons of massaman curry paste
1 tablespoon of tamarind paste
1 tablespoon of palm sugar
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 cinnamon stick
5 kaffir lime leaves
65g roasted unsalted peanuts
400ml can of coconut milk
350ml beef stock
Fresh coriander (to garnish)
- Pre-heat the oven to 160°C
- Dice the onion.
- Cut the potatoes into 2-3cm chunks
- Cut any large chunks of beef into approx 4 cm pieces.
- Heat the oil in a casserole dish, over a low heat and sauté the onion until it becomes translucent.
- Increase the heat to a medium heat, then add the massaman curry paste and cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the beef and stir well until the beef is sealed and coated in the curry paste.
- Pour in the coconut milk and stock and stir until the liquids have combined.
- Add the potatoes, tamarind paste, palm sugar, fish sauce, cinnamon stick, kaffir leaves and almost all of the roasted peanuts. Don't add any extra seasoning or the dish will be too salty.
- Stir well again and then bring the curry to a simmer.
- Cover and place in the oven for 2½ - 3 hours, until the beef is tender.
- Leave to cool for a few minutes, then garnish with chopped coriander and the remaining peanuts.
