Oven Slow Cooked Beef Curry, The Easy Way
Pantry ingredients and cooking from scratch are the way to cook right now, shopping only when needing to and for essential ingredients.
For me, nothing has changed, it’s the way I’ve always cooked and what I’ve tried to get others to do.
If this isn’t your normal way of cooking, don’t be afraid, be brave, try things you don’t normally try, combinations that may seem unusual, what’s the worst that can happen?
Go to my downloads page and print the Flavour Combinations and Mix Your Own Spice Blends, you might be surprised at what you might find.
Curry was never something I make too often, even though the lovely Mr G likes a nicely spiced curry.
My lack of curry experience was more to do with my ignorance about this great dish, and probably my inability to be able to tolerate spice very well. Thats changing now, I’m trying to increase my heat tolerance spice by spice.
For my parents, the oracles of my early cooking years, a curry for a meal was never an option, well not until the trend for Vesta meals emerged in the ‘70s.
Remember those?
Not that it would have been out of their realms of cooking abilities, no, it was more that as “working class” folk, a home-made curry was seen in our household as an indulgence and definitely foreign to them. Let me just remind you that my Dad was Yugoslavian.
Fish and chips as a Friday night treat every time for my Mum and Dad.
At the time of my growing up in the family home, food from a different country, unless Yugoslavian, may as well have been from a different universe.
And this is where my ignorance about curry comes into play.
From the very little I know about a curry, the traditional spices used can be a matter of regional or even familial choice. These sorts of dishes have specific names, and depending on the dishes, spices can be added at different times both whole or ground, cooked or raw, achieving different results.
The main spices found in most curry powders are cumin, coriander and turmeric, spices I suspect most people will have stored away in the dark recesses of their cupboards.
Which is why I wanted to show you an easy and very tasty way of making a one pot oven baked curry you can make without too much bother and almost no preparation. Showing you how easy it is to make a tasty curry without effort.
Literally throw everything in the pot and put it into a hot oven.
This will give you time to go out for your one hour allotted exercise time, clap for the NHS, clear out that airing cupboard or search for your lost hair pins.
You’ll have time to spend your spare minutes sewing left and right labels on your black socks, sorting out all your old Christmas decorations or whatever it is your doing during lockdown that’s stopping you from going crazy and running naked out into the street with your knickers on your head shouting “let’s do it together”
When you make this curry for yourself, each time you take the pot out of the oven to add the chickpeas or to give it a stir, remember to taste and adjust the seasoning , the amount of curry powder and water etc to suit your taste. We all have different tastes in food, and adjusting the flavour to suit you, no matter which recipe you use, tasting as you go, is the only way you’re going to find out what you like and what suits you.
Go on Give it a go.
Enjoy Your Sweet Life
Oven Slow Cooked Beef Curry
A bowl of one pot beef curry scooped up with a gram flour and fresh rosemary flat bred sprinkled with Maldon sea salt
What You Need
Beef – 500g
Coconut Greek Yoghurt – See Tip Box
1 x Tin of chopped Tomatoes
1 x large onion roughly chopped
200 gm frozen peas
1 x tin chickpeas – drained
4 Cloves of garlic – finely chopped
4 x tablespoons curry powder – See Tip Box
1 x Table Cayenne pepper
2 x teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon dried coriander
S & P
½ cup water Plus ½ cup more during cooking
Put everything into a pot ready for the oven
How It’s one
Heat oven to 180c – See Tip Box
In an oven proof pan with a tight fitting lid, add the beef, tinned tomatoes, chopped onion, garlic, curry powder, cayenne, ginger, coriander, ½ cup of water, salt and pepper.
Mix everything together so that the beef is coated in all of the spices
Put the lid on and place the pot into the hot oven for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, remove from the oven and add the chick peas, the frozen peas and the other ½ cup of water and mix well. – See Tip Box
Return to the oven and cook for a further 1 hour.
Remove from the oven and stir in the coconut Greek yoghurt.
Serve with flat breads
Creamy beef curry ready to serve. Cant be just me who likes all those caramelised bits around the edges.
Tip Box
Oven – All ovens vary so adjust cooking time accordingly.
Coconut Greek yoghurt – If you can get any coconut Greek yoghurt, use plain yogurt instead or coconut milk
Water – Keep a watch on how dry the curry is getting, and if you feel as if you need to add a little more water at the cooking stage, add a little more.
Curry Powder - Start off with the recommended amount of curry powder. But as you taste it, you might like ti add more. It will also depend on the strength of the curry powder you use.
A meal in a bowl , cooked in a pot
