My best ever homemade dish ❤️.

What a tasty dish this was!! The flavours just kept flowing through each mouthful. One of the best plates of food I’ve ever made.

The recipe was taken from Rick Steins – Far Eastern Odyssey. The last book I purchased to complete his collection.

I think almost all of his books I have signed. I can quite happily just sit down (if & when I get some peace & quiet) and lose myself in his recipe books. Just for the record….I’m not a stalker. I’m a big fan of Cornwall full stop. The fact you have my food hero based in Padstow is a massive bonus. The whole area has benefitted from his success (whether the locals ever admit it), the town is booming. I’d guess all year round the local hotels, pubs, restaurants take on a brilliant trade. This man’s hard work along with his talented family is something someone like me can only sit back and admire.

This recipe just stood out for me. An added bonus was that most of the ingredients were / are cupboard essentials for me whilst regularly cooking Indian / Asian food. Only item I had to purchase was the fresh beef mince.

Ingredients- 2 tbsp of coriander seeds, 1 tbso of cumin seeds, 2 tsp of garam masala, 1 1/2 tsp of chilli powder, 2 tsp of turmeric, 6 tbsp of vegetable oil, 2 large onions finely diced, 1 large heaped tsp of ginger paste, 750g pack of beef mince, 1 egg whisked, 8 green cardamom pods, 6 cloves, 1 heaped tbsp of tomato purée, 200ml of chopped tomatoes from a tin, 300ml of water, 2 green chillies cut into quarters, 24 curry leaves & a small piece of cinnamon stick broken up.

Method-

Heat a dry frying pan. Add the coriander & cumin seeds fry roasting them. Just love this smell in the kitchen.

As the seeds just start to catch, remove them from the heat adding them to a spice grinder of a mortar and pestle.

Grind the spices up to a nice powder, again the kitchen will smell great with aroma of spices.

Add the garam masala, turmeric and chilli powder to the spice mix.

In a clean large pan, heat 2 tbsp of the vegetable oil. Once this is hot add the diced onion and garlic paste. Fry this for 10 / 12 minutes.

Once the onion has taken on a nice colour add the spice mix to the pan.

Give this a good mix coating all the onion cooking it for a further 4 minutes or so.

At this stage remove from the heat. Split the onion mix in half leaving one half in the frying pan and the other place in a mixing bowl.

Add the beef mince, the whisked egg, a good pinch of salt to the onion mix in the bowl.

Mix this with your hands. Combine the mixture together.

Mould the mince mixture on your hands to form balls the size of golf balls and put them aside.

Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan. Once the oil is nice and hot fry off your beef balls to colour them and cook them. you will have to cook them in batches as not to overcrowd the pan. By overcrowding the pan you lower the temperature of the oil.

Whilst the beef is frying place the reminding onion mix back on the heat. Add in the cardamom pods, gloves, tomato purée, green chillies, curry leaves, good pinch of salt and cinnamon stick.

Follow these with 200ml of the tinned tomatoes plus 300ml of water. Give all the ingredients a good stir and bring to a simmer.

Allow the sauce to simmer whilst you finish off the beef balls.

As you’re cooking them in small batches place them all together on a plate whilst the rest are cooking.

Once you’ve cooked the meat and the sauce has come to a simmer add the beef balls to the sauce and simmer for 20 minutes.

The sauce will cook down and thick to make a beautiful sauce.

The dish is amazing.

I’m really proud of this dish. To see and taste the end product tells me me continuing on my food journey in the right direction. I served my dish up with steamed rice.

Thank you for reading my ramblings. Please note….I use no camera filters for my photos.