Massaman Beef Curry. YUM.

Holy smokes, I can cook! I think good ol' Albie Einstein must have had a similar feeling of 'WTF' when he discovered his theory of relativity.

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm on a mission to correct my impaired cooking gene (which is an odd gene, since most of my family are amazing cooks and my mum has written three cookbooks).

So I bought Jody Vasello's excellent book 'Asian: One Step at a Time'... it's completely idiot proof with photos for every step - even what each ingredient looks like in case you aren't sure what bean sprouts are (*cough* like me).

I'm not going to give away all the recipes because I'm sure young Jody would rather everyone bought the book, but I did begin with Massaman Beef Curry the other day, which was a rather odd choice because I don't actually like curry.

Until I tried this one.

Be still my rumbling tummy, I promise to feed you Jody's Massaman Beef Curry again soon. Now hush up.

Here is the recipe - I promise you won't regret trying this one... I'm so inspired to cook more!

p.s. The side dish in the photo is Chicken Pad Thai which was also a thousand shades of delish.

MASSAMAN BEEF CURRY

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 potatoes

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 tablespoons Massaman curry paste

500g rump steak, cubed

1 onion, chopped

500ml coconut milk

2 tablespoons grated palm sugar

2 tablespoons fish sauce

3 tablespoons tamarind concentrate (puree)

3 tablespoons roasted peanuts, chopped

Steamed jasmine rice, to serve

Method:

1. Cut the potatoes into large pieces then steam or parboil.

2. Heat the oil in a wok, add the curry paste and cook gently for 3 minutes, or until fragrant.

3. Increase the heat to medium. Add the potatoes, steak and onion and cook until the steak browns.

4. Stir in the milk, sugar and fish sauce. Boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Add the tamarind and cook for another 5 minutes.

6. Top with the chopped roasted peanuts and serve with steamed jasmine rice.