Beef Vindaloo (Spice of life)

A fiery hot dish originally from Goa, a "vindaloo" curry is made using a unique blend of hot aromatic spices and vinegar to give it a distinctive spicy flavour. 

Serve 4

• 15 ml cumin seeds
• 4 dried red chillies
• 5 ml black peppercorns
• 5 green cardamom pods, seeds only
• 5 ml fenugreek seeds
• 5 ml black mustard seeds
• 2.5 ml salt
• 2.5 ml demerara sugar
• 60 ml white wine vinegar
• 60 ml vegetable oïl
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 900 gr stewing beef, cut into 2,5 cm cubes (1-inch)
• 2.5 cm (1-inch) piece fresh root ginger, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 10 ml ground coriander
• 2.5 ml ground tumeric
• Plain and yellow rice, to serve (see cook's tip below)

1. Put the cumin seeds, chillies, peppercorns, cardamom seeds, fenugreek seeds and mustard seeds into a coffee grinder or use a pestle and mortar and grind to a fine powder.
2. Transfer to a bowl, add salt, sugar and white wine vinegar and mix to a thin paste.
3. Heat 30 ml of the oil in a large frying pan and fry the onions for 10 minutes.
4. Put the onion and the spice mixture into a food processor or blender and process to a coarse paste.
5. Heat the remaining oïl in the frying pan and fry the meat cubes for about 10 minutes until lightly browned, remove the beef cubes with a slotted spoon and set aside.
6. Add the ginger and garlic and fry for 2 minutes, stir in the ground coriander and tumeric and fry 2 minutes.
7. Add the spice and onion paste and fry for about 5 minutes.
8. Return the meat to the pan together with 300 ml water.
9. Cover and simmer for 1-1½ hours or until the meat is tender.
10. Serve with plain and yellow rice (see cook's tip below)

Cook's tip
     To make plain and yellow rice, infuse a pinch of saffron strands or dissolve a little ground tumeric in 15 ml hot water. Stir into half the cooked rice until uniformly yellow. Carefully mix the yellow rice into the plain rice.

BON APPETIT