I am a core fan of beef meat even though I don’t prepare many dishes with it. Back home, we normally have very few dishes with beef like Aana pathal with beef gravy, Beef porichathu to go with Malabar pathiri (a famous rice roti from Malabar region) which is a unique and popular combination, irachi ada or beef samosas and a simple beef curry. My favourite has always been the beef porichathu or the beef fry, the recipe of which I will post as I prepare it. Here is a simple yet an interesting recipe for beef; does not belong to Malabar, but quite a common preparation found in the central and southern part of Kerala. The curry is strongly flavoured with the spices and is much different from the Malabar recipes. The recipe is quite similar to my Mutton ularthiyathu recipe, but I played around by shuffling a bit with the ingredients.
Ingredients:
500g Beef cut into required size, small or big as preferred.
For marinade:
1 ½ Tbsp lightly roasted coriander powder
½ Tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder
1 tbsp minced ginger
5 large flakes of garlic, grated (1 heaped Tbsp)
¼ tsp turmeric powder
Salt – as required
To roast and grind:
1 – 1 ½ tsp fennel seeds
3 cloves
3 cardamoms
2 small pieces of cinnamon sticks of 1 inch length
1 tsp pepper corns
Others:
1 ½ cup sliced shallots (1 used ¾ cup onion and ¾ cup shallots)
1 large tomato
¼ - 1/3 cup sliced coconut (Thengkkothu)
3 twig curry leaves
3 Tbsp coconut oil (Vegetable oil may be substituted)
Salt-as required
Preparation:
1.Wash the beef well, marinate with ground coriander, Kashmiri Chilli powder, turmeric powder, ginger, garlic and salt for half an hour.
2. Heat a pressure cooker, add this marinated beef and cook on low- medium heat making sure not to burn the meat. When it is well cooked, turn off the heat. If there is lot of liquid released from the meat, turn the heat up and boil off the excess water until the meat is smothered in thick gravy.
3. In another sauce pan/frying pan, heat oil. Add sliced shallots, little salt and sliced coconut and sauté on medium heat until onions starts turning golden colour. (It may take around 15-20 minutes on medium heat, but it may vary on the pan and medium of heat used).
4. At this stage, add the gravy smothered meat, tomato,2 twigs of curry leaves and powdered spices leaving ½ teaspoon behind for the final sprinkling and mix well. Cover and cook for 4-5 minutes on low flame until it gets really thick. Keep sautéing until the curry is quite dry and starts taking a light blackish/dark brown colour.
5. Sprinkle the rest of spices and 1 twig of curry leaves and mix well.
This curry tastes better the next day, so you may prepare it ahead of time if you are preparing for any parties. Garnish with chopped coriander and sliced coconut. Can be served as a side dish for rice, chappathi, porotta, pathiris etc.
This post also comes with a set of awards from two of my fellow bloggers. Food lovers had shared this sunshine award. Thanks you dear.Another set of award including sunshine award is shared by Ayesha of lifetoday. Thanks u Ayesha.
The award also comes with a bunch of questions to write about yourself. I have done that part sometime back and yoou can see that here.
I would like to pass on these awards to the following fabulous bloggers:
Sarah of Vazhayila
Gulmohar of Collaborative curry
Divya Kudua of Divyascookbook
Maria of Mariasmenu
Pavithra of dishes from my kitchen
Nithya of 4thsensecooking.
Tina of Kaipunyam
Parita of Paritasworld
Sailaja of Sailaja kitchen.