I love cooking this dish from Rick Stein’s ‘India’ cook book. It’s a great dish due to the simplicity & the flavours. I have to be honest, it’s my go to comfort food, perfect to put on and leave to cook whilst pottering about.

The flavours are insane considering you are only using 3 ground spices, as per the saying, less is more.

Ingredients-

Large knob of butter – 25g, 800g of diced beef, 2 onions sliced, 1 heaped tbsp of garlic and ginger paste, 1 tsp of chilli powder, 1 tsp of turmeric, 1 1/2 tbsp of garam masala, 1 1/2 tsp of sea salt, 600ml beef stock, 50g of desiccated coconut, 100g of sultanas.

Method –

Melt the butter in a heavy based pan.

Once the butter has melted brown the beef in small batches. I’ve you overcrowd the pan you naturally lower the heat in and end up poaching the beef which you don’t want to do.

Once you’ve browned the meat set it aside whilst you brown the onions.

The pan has been left with lots of flavour. As the beef has seared it’s caramelised one the base of the pan. Give the pan little scrap with a wooden spoon.

Add the diced onion to the pan.

Cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally to ensure the onions are soaking up the leftover beef goodness.

Add in the garlic & ginger paste. Give the pan a good stir.

Return the beef to the pan along with any juices that have come out of the relaxed beef.

Add in the ground spices, chilli powder, turmeric and 1 tbsp of the garam masala plus the salt.

Give the pan a good stir letting it cook for a minute or so.

Now add the beef stock……

Followed by the desiccated coconut…….

Followed by the saltanas……..

Give the pan another good stir. Reduce the heat a little. Cover and cook for 45 minutes to an hour.

You will have a lovely thick ‘gravy’ that tastes and smells so good!!

I served mine with steamed rice and a shop bought naan bread. I do get asked about my rice. I also use extra long grain rice which you would commonly use when cooking a biriyani. I pick a 5kg bag up from a local Indian deli rather than use any of the common supermarket brands. I never was my rice as some chefs recommend. This removes the starch which I want to keep so the rice has an element of stickiness. Double the amount of water to rice. Bring it to a gentle simmer, cook until you get little bubble holes appear then remove the rice from the heat and leave covered so it steams itself.

The finished dish ❤️. The beef is tender and the saltanas have soaked up the ‘gravy’ flavours.

The finished ‘arty’ photo 👍🏻

Thank you for reading my ramblings if you have.