Friday, January 29, 2010

Indonesian Beef Curry

Ingredients
Curry:
Cooking spray
1 1/2 pounds lean top round, thinly sliced
1 1/2 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots
2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 serrano chiles, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons ground coriander
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cardamom pods, crushed
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
1 cup organic vegetable broth (such as Swanson Certified Organic)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
Rice:
1 1/4 cups water
1 cup uncooked basmati rice
1 cup light coconut milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preparation
To prepare curry, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Coat the pan with cooking spray. Place half of the beef in skillet; cook 1 minute on each side or until browned. Remove the beef from pan. Keep warm. Repeat process with the remaining beef.
Lower heat to medium; add oil to pan. Add shallots, ginger, garlic, and chiles; cook 4 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in coriander and next 6 ingredients (through cinnamon); cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Return beef to pan. Add broth; bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 35 minutes or until beef is tender. Uncover and cook 10 minutes or until sauce thickens. Discard cinnamon stick; stir in juice.
To prepare rice, bring 1 1/4 cups water and remaining ingredients to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 18 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat. Let stand, covered, 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Place 2/3 cup rice onto each of 6 plates; top each serving with 1/2 cup curry.
Nutritional Information
Calories:
280 (30% from fat)
Fat:
9.4g (sat 3.4g,mono 3.4g,poly 1.2g)
Protein:
27.9g
Carbohydrate:
18.6g
Fiber:
1g
Cholesterol:
64mg
Iron:
3.1mg
Sodium:
536mg
Calcium:
26mg
Mark Scarbrough, Cooking Light, MAY 2007

3 comments:

  1. My fingers burned for more than 24 hours after cutting the serranos. That night, and the next morning, my eyes were also on fire because I had to take out/put in my contact lenses.

    I think this is going to be too spicy. My plan is to double the rice and try to cool it off that way.

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  2. Funny story. I thawed this meal last night to have for dinner tonight. This afternoon I realized I didn't have a lime for it, so I packed up Sweet Pea 10 minutes before her nap time and off we went to get a lime. She was very cranky and it was a miserable trip to the store in the freezing cold and snow.

    Tonight as I was cleaning up dinner, I see the freaking lime sitting on the counter. I had totally forgotten to add the lime juice to the meal. It's really been that kind of day.

    So the curry wasn't great. The lime would have definitely improved it, but the major problem was that the beef was really tough and was hard to cut up as we were eating it. I think it was supposed to be sliced into strips before cooking. (like this picture: http://media.photobucket.com/image/thinly%20sliced%20round%20steak./alanddem/WhatsForDinner017.jpg)

    Secondly, after the first 35 minutes, all of the broth had boiled off. Maybe I cooked it too hot, but other people commented that they had the same problem with this recipe. The meat was practically burning on the bottom of the skillet. I added another cup of broth and the rest of the coconut milk (what I hadn't used for the rice) and cooked it another 5 minutes.

    Another problem was the whole thing was really salty and I like a lot of salt. I don't know if your vegetable broth contains salt or not (I used chicken broth), but I might recommend using plain water instead.

    Oh, I didn't think it was too hot. It was spicy, but not miserable. Also the rice was fantastic and really helped the dish.

    So, with some improvements I think this could be a good dish... but the way I made it left a lot to be desired.

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  3. So for our second night of this curry, I chopped up all of the meat. Then brought a can of light coconut milk to a simmer and added about a pound of chopped broccoli. I let that steam about 3 minutes and then added the leftover curry mixture and cooked it until everything was hot and the brocoli was tender.

    We ate the broccoli curry mixture over rice. It was really good. Much more tender and less salty than the original.

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