Beef curry

Name: Beef curry
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: Sri Lanka
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon ground cumin; 1½ teaspoons chilli powder; 1 teaspoon ground coriander; 2 teaspoons Sri Lankan meat curry powder; 450 g (1 lb) topside or chuck steak, cut into 2 cm (¾ in) pieces; ½ teaspoon salt; 5 cm (2 in) piece pandanus leaf; 1 cinnamon stick; 1 tablespoon tomato paste (concentrated purée) (optional); ½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds, lightly roasted; ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 1 beef stock cube (bouillon) (optional); 2 tablespoons vegetable oil; 2 green cardamom pods, bruised; 1 small onion, finely chopped; 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced; 1 sprig fresh curry leaves, leaves picked; 2 cm (¾ in) piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced; ½ teaspoon Sri Lankan roasted curry powder; ½ teaspoon ground turmeric

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Serendip

By Peter Kuruvita

Published 2009

About

There are a number of Sri Lankan recipes for beef curry. Some have coriander leaves, others are fenugreek based. But I want to give you the house beef curry from our ancestral home in Dehiwala. My Dad modified it further when we were in Australia by adding a tablespoonful of tomato paste to enhance the richness.

This curry is not meant to be mild. It should be fiery and bring out beads of perspiration on your forehead while you are eating it. The flavours will really mingle if the c