If you love a good, fragrant curry, then put away your store-bought curry powder. Use freshly ground spices like cumin, turmeric and coriander, dry fry them in a pan and smell the difference. In fact, that’s the only thing you will fry in this recipe. To cook the meat you only need to simmer it in coconut milk, together with fragrant spices. Your blender will do most of the work.This is a fantastic and rich curry that benefits in flavor, if cooked the previous day. Before reheating, thin with a little water, if the potatoes absorb too much of the sauce. Serve with crispy, fried onions.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg beef in 3-4 cm cubes
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and split in half or quarters (what you want here is about 8-10 potato pieces, approx 4cm each)
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves
• 6 cm piece fresh ginger, peeled
• 6 red chilli peppers
• 2 stalks lemongrass, chopped (soft parts only)
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 Kaffir lime leaves, fresh or dry
• 800 ml coconut milk
• 2 Tbs dark soy sauce
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

Split 4 of the chilli peppers in half and remove seeds. Leave the seeds in the other two. Put in all chillies in a blender together with the lemongrass, onions, ginger, garlic and turmeric. Blend on high speed until pureed

Put the beef cubes in a large bowl. In a small frying pan, dry fry the coriander and cumin seeds, stirring over medium heat, until fragrant and slightly darker in colour. Add seeds in the bowl with the beef, together with the chilli/onion puree. Mix everything together.

Put beef in a large pot together with the coconut milk. Bring to boil and lower the heat. Cover the pot partly, and simmer for 1 ½ hours. Add the potatoes and simmer 25 minutes more, until potatoes are cooked. If sauce is too thick add some water. Serve with crispy, fried onions and rice.