2013 Cooking Club Week 40: Vindaloo

The Hill Billy · 14-10-2013 1:05pm #1

Hi folks - we've had a no-show for Week 40, so I'm posting this as a stand-in recipe (recently posted in the Here's What I had for Dinner... thread.

Apologies for no pics, but ye all know what a curry looks like.

This recipe is a tweaked version of one I've unashamedly robbed from the Hairy Bikers.

Feel free to adjust the spices to your personal taste.

Ingredients
1.5kg stewing beef, or shoulder of lamb
3 medium onions
750g potatoes, cut into chunks
150ml red wine vinegar
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp hot chili powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 fresh chilis
Juice of 1 lime
6 garlic cloves, minced
Thumb-sized piece of ginger
Salt
Butter
Vegetable/groundnut oil

Method
First, place meat in a non-metal dish, sprinkle with 2-3 tsp of salt & rub in well.
Add the red wine vinegar, toss well, cover & then allow to marinade in the fridge for 2 or 3 hours. (Overnight is even better).
Halve, then thinly slice two of the onions & fry on a low/medium heat to soften for 10/15 minutes.
Cut the remaining onion into chunks & place in a blender with the lime juice, chilis, garlic, ginger & dry spices.
Blend until you have a fairly smooth paste.
Add the paste to the pan with the onions & cook off for a further 5-10 mins.
Remove the meat from the marindate (reserve the liquor) & brown in the butter & oil in a good-sized pot. (Doing this in batches in best.)
When meat has been browned - put all pieces back in the pot along with the onion/paste mix, reserved marinade liquor, 500ml water (more if needed) & mix well. (A couple of bay leaves can be added if you have them.)
Place lid on pot (& a cartouche as well if you can be bothered) & cook in the oven at 180C for 45 minutes.
Remove from oven & add potato chunks - mix in well - place back in the oven & cook for 1 hour.
Done!

The Hill Billy · 14-10-2013 8:27pm

If Mrs Billy & The Kids fancy a curry when I get home this weekend I'll do this & take pics. Only thing is that she'll get me to add lots of veg - eg, chickpeas, tomatoes, peppers & probably cauliflower (our fave veg for curries right now).

Feck it - I'm not a curry purist & if it works, it works.

Hootanany · 14-10-2013 8:31pm

I'm up for that cheers.

unkel · 15-10-2013 12:49am

On my list for trying out soon

Couple of questions for you HB, or anyone else:

- 1:45h in the oven seems far too short for stewing beef to tenderise. Does the marinating in the fridge with the red wine vinegar (acid) cure it significantly to help it well on the way?

- rather than marinating, is it a good idea to try slow cooking the lot, say on high for 8 hours?

The Hill Billy · 15-10-2013 6:31am

The marinade does indeed start the curing. It also infuses the meat with the flavours. Also, the times given have worked for me & the meat has come out perfectly tender.

Slow cooking would work also, but I would definitely brown the meat first.

Best of luck!

Honey-ec · 15-10-2013 10:06am

I have everything in the cupboard for this bar the meat; I know what I'm cooking at some stage this week.

Curry Addict · 15-10-2013 1:36pm

looks great, im going to make this at the weekend with chicken tighs(cant eat red meat), its been a while since i had a vindaloo like this :pac:
I might throw in a handful of coriander at the end

FTA69 · 17-10-2013 12:54pm

Would using white wine vinegar make a massive difference?

The Hill Billy · 17-10-2013 12:57pm

No, not a massive difference. The acid is the main thing to start tenderising the meat. It may just leave a slightly different vinegary flavour, but with the other spices, etc you'd probably not really notice the difference.

FTA69 · 17-10-2013 1:16pm

Grand job, vindaloo for me so tomorrow night. Although I'll be using two scotch bonnets instead of the average chilis. I got the Hairy Bikers curry cookbook, it's brilliant.

Pigwidgeon · 17-10-2013 11:50pm

I know this is OT, but speaking of the Hairy Bikers, I feel that this has to be posted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5py2mfBYPg

Back on topic:

Is this a very hot recipe? I love curry's but I'm a complete and utter wimp when it comes to spicy food. I might give it a try with a regular curry powder and maybe one less chilli and see how I get on. It sounds great either way; if it's too spicy I'll give it to the BF he's mad for that type of stuff (I've seen him sitting watching tv eating a jar of jalapeños).

The Hill Billy · 18-10-2013 7:35am

It is spicy, but not savagely so. Use mild chilli powder & less fresh chillis. It will still have plenty of flavour.

Lovely Bloke · 18-10-2013 10:53am

how many does it serve?

The Hill Billy · 18-10-2013 11:42am

I'd say probably around 5-6 people. Throw in some more veg & you could stretch it further.

The thing is, I cook mostly just for myself these days as I'm away from home during the week. I make a big pot of something on Monday night & it'll do me for a few nights (I generally eat out once in the week too). The rest gets bunged in the freezer as a back-up for a week when I can't be bothered cooking.

Lovely Bloke · 18-10-2013 11:56am

5-6 dinners? Grand stuff, I'll just cook up the whole lot and freeze what isn't eaten tomorrow.

Nice one

The Hill Billy · 18-10-2013 12:23pm

Well, the meat, spuds & onions will come to around 2.5kg, so that 5 x 500g portions. Best of luck!

Lovely Bloke · 19-10-2013 10:14pm

Jaysis, 1.5k of meat is a LOT, 150ml of vinegar is not covering it - I also don't have a pot big enough for all that meat that goes into the over.

Hmmmm.

I split it into two smaller casserole dishes and have it in the fridge since about 5ish, will stir it before going to bed tonight, then see what's to be done tomorrow.

Lovely Bloke · 20-10-2013 2:27pm

It's in the oven, my wife reminded me about the huge casserole dish we got for our wedding.

Now have to start on a Korma for herself.

Lovely Bloke · 20-10-2013 5:38pm

I cooked it slightly longer than the 1:45 in the recipe as we had some unannounced guests - the meat is gloriously fall apart tender, and I can't wait to have my dinner.

Added chickpeas as we had a tin, and a green pepper because I love green pepper with chilli based sauces.

Thanks for this recipe tHB it's ridiculously easy to make and absolutely gorgeous.

I got the meat in the asian shop where I got the mustard seeds, would shop there again for meat.

The Hill Billy · 21-10-2013 9:12am

Super BC!!!

MugMugs · 21-10-2013 12:24pm

Loving this tHb.

This will be a saturday night in job this weekend methinks. I am thinking a 6 hour slow cook should cut the grade with the meat seared?

Anybody slow cooked yet?

FTA69 · 23-10-2013 3:52pm

Made this and added 4 scotch bonnet chillis. It was face-meltingly delicious.

MugMugs · 27-10-2013 9:42pm

So I did it and loved it. May have to freeze the rest as there's loads!

earlytobed · 29-10-2013 11:36am

Did it at the weekend. Left out the spuds and had to do it on the hob as I hadn't a casserole big enough. Very tasty
Clean plates all round!
plenty in the freezer
I would say 8 portions

BaZmO* · 29-10-2013 11:56am

Made this at the weekend too. Really really nice.

I had decided to make it for dinner on Saturday so had the meat marinating on the Friday. Had uninvited guests so that worked great, well apart from the fact one of them is now a vegetarian and the other couldn't get their head around having potatoes and rice and naan bread at the one sitting, carb overload apparently!

Made the spice mix as per the original recipe for no other reason than I had all the spices there, although I did use mustard seeds which I thought looked great in the finished dish. Slightly wimped out on the chillies, added 1 whole chilli and 2 chillies deseeded. Ironically it wasn't hot enough, so I added a teaspoon of crushed chillies towards the end.

Made a slight boo boo when cooking it. When checking on it at one stage I didn't put the casserole dish on correctly and it ended up slightly drier than I would've liked but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Curry Addict · 16-11-2013 2:00pm

I made this yesterday with a kilo of chicken thighs and 1/2 everything else!
it worked really well and was very delicious, vinegar garlic and chilli yam yam :pac:
thanks for the recipe!

The Hill Billy · 18-11-2013 12:10pm

Curry Addict liked my curry. I am chuffed!

MissFlitworth · 09-12-2013 1:43pm

If I was to give this a whirl with 500gm of moo would it work to just divide all the quantities by 3? Have just remembered that I have an impulse purchased half kilo of stewing beef at home that I'd semi earmarked for stew but would much rather make curry with

The Hill Billy · 09-12-2013 1:48pm

I'm sure that would be fine. Maybe just halve the spices so you still get the flavour.

Alternatively, you could bulk it up with more spuds. Chickpeas &/or cauliflower would also go very well with this.

Happy cooking!

MissFlitworth · 09-12-2013 3:24pm

The Hill Billy wrote: »

I'm sure that would be fine. Maybe just halve the spices so you still get the flavour.

Alternatively, you could bulk it up with more spuds. Chickpeas &/or cauliflower would also go very well with this.

Happy cooking!

Chickpeas eh! Oh I love chickpeas, thanks for the heads up, curry it is

Teeley · 19-12-2013 12:41am

Made this on Monday for some friends..it was delicious and very easy to prepare! I used butternut squash instead of potatoes. Got 6 size good portions from it. I'll definitely be making it again! Thanks!

2013 Cooking Club Week 40: Vindaloo

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