Tangy sweet curry

While on study leave for my taxation exam, I decided to get in the spirit of staying at home and made a loving, homely, filling meal for my family. Awww:) Being inept at savoury cooking, I dug out a trusty cook book from the bookshelf and flipped through it to find above mentioned loving, homely, filling meal. I chose to make a tangy sweet curry and was amazed at the result!





What meat to buy? The recipe said 'lean' beef. Errr I do not care for lean. I also remembered the disaster that was a beef stroganoff I once cooked with stupidly tough beef strips. I hate you beef strips!

The decision? I bought gravy beef. Gravy beef. Wow. Where have you been all my life? I was not living life to the max in my pre-gravy beef days!

1. Gravy beef is so cheap. At around $10/kg my non existent Excel spreadsheet budget says 'buy it Kim!'

2. Gravy beef is soft like your favourite pillow and tasty like....Rainbow Paddle Pops, when they used to have blue in them.



Tangy Sweet Curry

This recipe is from Classic Country Cooking: Traditional Australian Fare by Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen, pg 24

I altered the recipe slightly, to include a can of tomatoes. I used this the first time I made the curry and it was much nicer with them. I have also used gravy beef instead of 'lean steak'.

Serves 6 (or three very hungry people; my parents and me)

What you need

1kg gravy beef

4 sticks celery

2 large carrots

1 cooking apple

1 onion

1 tablespoon plain flour

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 teaspoon salt

440g tin condensed tomato soup
440g tin diced tomatoes, drained (if you do not drain, you will have too much liquid in your pot)

1 tablespoon golden syrup

Juice of 1/2 a lemon (or a whole lemon if you have small ones)

What you need to do

1. Cut gravy beef into small pieces and place in a pot.
2. Dice the vegetables and place into the pot.
3. Combine flour, curry powder, salt, tomato soup, golden syrup and lemon juice together in a bowl. Add to the pot.
4. Simmer for 2 hours on the stove or until the meat is soft enough for your liking. Check the meat as you go as it may stick to the bottom of your pot like mine did.

The curry was fantastic. Not too strong when it comes to the curry side of things, but still warm enough to warm me up. You could add more curry powder if you desire. But, I liked it just the way it was.

I always thought you had to brown the meat first and then add it back to the pot. Or something like this. Nope, the above recipe works fine. Just cook it all together.

The curry made such a good impression that I cooked up another batch for my work lunches:) A warm meal for lunch makes me happy. Cans of tuna make me sad. Very sad.