Baked Beef Curry

Recently a friend asked me why the beef in his beef curry was all chewy. He had used some diced beef and fried it before serving. The issue here is that the beef needs a lot longer to cook and not just fried off. This recipe shows how you can make a beef curry in the oven, slow cooking the beef so that it is full of flavour and falls apart when eating.This is also a pretty healthy way to make a curry! 

As always feel free to swap out any ingredients as making a recipe match your tastes is what is important! 

I am using diced beef just as my friend did however if chuck steak or stewing steak is available and you want to cut it up yourself go for it! 

To make my baked beef curry you will need the following

400g Diced Beef
1 tin of tomatoes
1 Red Pepper
1 Onion
1 chilli
Some Fresh Ginger
2 Cloves of Garlic
Fresh Coriander

Spices:
Ground Coriander
Garam Masala
Ground Cumin
Turmeric
Ground Fenugreek
Medium Curry Powder

As the dish is going to be cooked in the oven its important to get the flavours going to give the dish a kick start. 

Chop up the onion, pepper, ginger and garlic and fry it off you will start to smell the fantastic aromas of the garlic and the ginger coming through, cook on a medium low heat so that you don't burn the garlic. 
Once the onion starts to colour take the veg off the heat and transfer the cooked bits into a bowl as we will add it into the beef.


In a bowl add a teaspoon of each of the spices and 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix the spices and the flour together. 
Check the beef, cut any fatty bits off to make the meat a bit leaner. Add the beef to the flour mix and coat the beef. The flour mix will stick to the beef giving a fantastic flavour and the flour will act as a thickening agent to thicken the curry whilst cooking.

Transfer the covered beef into a thick bottomed pan that can put in the oven. Add some oil and the fry off the beef, the idea is to colour the beef and seal it, do not use a too high heat, just enough to let it sizzle. 

Once the beef is coloured at the cooked vegetables back in and stir before adding the tinned tomatoes. 

Stick the lid on and bake in the oven for up to 2 hours at 160C. This time will differ depending on your oven, my oven cooked this in 1 1/2 hours. After an hour check the curry, see how easy the beef cuts. You know the curry is ready when the beef falls apart! 

Once the curry is ready take it out and give it a stir, add some fresh coriander and serve on rice.