Beef Curry

After a considerable hiatus of almost a week, we finally have a chance to post again. Last Thursday we went with Evan to an open house at the Sam Adams Boston Brewery. They were serving their Summer Ale and Pale Ale along with special ice cream concoctions that local company J.P. Licks came up with using Sam Adams beers as ingredients. The Summer Ale ice cream was pretty nice, but eating it while drinking actual beer was not a good combination. They had a grill going with a nice outdoor tented seating area, so the scene had great potential. However, the food coming off the grill was unimpressive to say the least -- the "pork sausage" was completely devoid of flavor and contained about 90% sawdust (or recycled cardboard) judging from the texture. We bailed and went to Acapulco's, a low-end Mexican restaurant in Jamaica Plain, for some cheap margaritas and enchiladas. The service was inexcusably slow considering that we were the only occupied table in the place, but we don't go there for the stellar wait staff...

Last weekend Melissa hosted her annual "Boston Massacre" Diplomacy tournament (see Evan's blog for a few photos and commentary), and since I was the designated go-fer, that kept us both busy from Friday morning to Sunday evening. We hosted a cookout for about a dozen participants on Friday night with Italian sausages, hot dogs, grilled vegetables and beer on the menu. Along with a long evening at work and a couple of convenience meals out, that didn't leave much room for cooking.


After a day home from work with a sore throat, last night Melissa made a spicy beef curry to chase away the germs. This dish paired beautifully with a 2004 Brancott Riesling (Marlborough, NZ). The Brancott label is actually Montana winery, but to market their wines in the US they wisely changed the name so that potential consumers wouldn't think the wine came from the state of Montana. See Melissa's recipe and notes below...

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Melissa's Recipe and Notes

Beef Curry

The day after the Diplomacy tournament my throat felt a little scratchy. As the day wore on it became obvious to me that this was not from overuse but a cold or an attack of tonsilitis brewing. That night I fell asleep only to wake up about 3am barely able to swallow. I managed to get back to sleep but decided to spend the next day in my 'jammies keeping warm, sleeping and reading Kai's grant. Food-wise, I ate lots of oranges (apparently Diplomacy players don't eat a lot of fruit) and tried to get as much garlic into me as possible. After two naps of more than 2 hours each and a head of roasted garlic with potatoes I was feeling quite a bit better, but decided to hit the last of it with a hearty curry for dinner. Halfway through the recipe I thought a couple of dollops of salty peanut butter would be nice addition, but as we didn't have any I threw in some ground almonds instead. There was something missing from the curry spices as well, so I threw in a little pre-made spice mix too. Cheating I know, but I was sick, and trekking out to the supermarket to pick up things like garam masala wasn't an option. I also had some plain yogurt in the fridge I was going to put with it, but alas it was off. Still, all and all it was a pretty tasty curry.

Olive oil
1 onion - sliced
5 garlic cloves
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp of black pepper seeds
1 tsp of dried chilli flakes
1 tbsp of ground cumin
1/2 tsp of ground cloves
1 tsp of ginger
1 tsp of curry spice mix
1 tsp of chicken stock paste
1/2 cup of ground almonds
400g of sirlion steak tips
A few small whole potatoes (optional)
Water to stew everything together
Salt to season
1 cup of rice

In a food processor, or with a mortar and pestle, grind coriander seeds, fennel seeds and pepper seeds into a fine mix. Find a medium to large pot with a good fitting lid. Drizzle some olive oil in it to coat the bottom and add onions to sautee on medium to high heat. Let them get a little golden colour. Add beef, garlic and all the spices and stir fry until meat has been sealed. Add water to cover and chicken stock paste and bring to a boil. Add ground almonds and simmer for about 1 hour to tenderize the meat, cook the potatoes and let the spices permeate the dish. Keep topping up water if it gets thick enough to start catching on the bottom of the pot. Serve on rice.