British Beef Raj Curry

As part of a food studies course, I read extensively about the British “Raj” (rule) of India. The British did indeed adopt select aspects of the Indian cuisine, mostly by necessity, and with adjustments, they transformed the recipes into small but tangible elements of home. When the ex-pats returned to Britain they brought back these comforts and subsequently and simultaneously created a subgenre of both British and Indian cuisines. I felt as though I was testing a bit of history as I worked with this recipe.

Like any good beef stew, the ingredients came together sequentially and without much fuss. How wide your pot is will determine how many batches you will need to brown the beef. It took 3 batches in a Dutch oven for me. I found I needed to add another tablespoon of butter to sauté the onions. I also substituted 1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper and 2/3 teaspoon sweet paprika (I eyeballed it using a teaspoon) for the Kashmiri chile powder. I let the curry simmer for 45 minutes and was satisfied with the spicing so I didn’t add any additional garam masala at the end.

I presented the beef curry with garlic naan and basmati rice with green peas. We ate it just as it was, without any additional condiments, and it was bloody good. Enjoy!

Rick Stein’s beef curry recipe really surprised me. While I felt this was going to be a decent recipe as the instructions were solid, I wasn’t prepared to be blown away by the complex flavor and meltingly tender consistency. So I’ll just come out and say that I love this recipe. Sweet, beefy, slightly spicy, with a hint of the exotic, this for me is what a good curry is all about.

We enjoyed this dish taco-style—we added healthy spoonfuls of the stew into homemade pita and topped it with a little yogurt and jarred mango chutney. Oh yes, yes. I couldn’t find Kashmiri chile powder at my grocery store so ended up just using the suggested substitute. I used Hungarian sweet paprika and a bit of cayenne, which gave the stew a bit of heat.

I used Thompson seedless raisins that were big and plump. I didn’t need to add any more butter to the pan while browning the beef. So when it came time to add the onions I went with what was still left in the pan. This was perfect even for the large amount of sliced onions as they browned and softened beautifully.

As for the simmering time, for me, the suggested time was way too short. I ended up adding 30 more minutes to give the beef curry a softer texture for a total of an hour and 15 minutes. I didn’t add any extra garam masala at the end as I felt the seasoning and spice levels were kind of perfect for our tastes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

This recipe for British raj beef curry was a nice change of pace for our evening meal. The stew’s consistency and the beautiful Indian spices were outstanding! My guests each had a second helping.

This is another quick and easy meal to make. The wonderful spices of the gram masala and chile powder gave the curry a very comforting flavor. I did not use dried coconut; however did add 1 cup of canned sweet coconut milk to the stock. I didn’t add any raisins. Turned out wonderful! I loved the textures of the beef and the caramelized onions as well as the fragrant sauce. I’ve included this recipe in my top ten favorites along with cauliflower curry! I had some fresh turmeric that I grated with a microplane instead of using powdered turmeric. Served over white rice.

This beef stew recipe makes one of the nicest curries I’ve had in quite a while. The aroma while this was cooking was mouthwatering.

Since I had 8 for dinner, I doubled the recipe. Kashmiri chili powder isn’t available here, so I used the substitution of smoked paprika and cayenne pepper. Just before serving, I added an additional tablespoon of garam masala to brighten the taste. We served this with garlic naan bread, a cucumber salad, a dollop or two of crème fraîche, and a nice pear chutney I’d made earlier in the year. Even the tasters with no tolerance for spice loved this beef stew. Doubling the recipe should have made 10 to 12 servings and given me some leftovers for lunches. No such luck as there was nothing left in the pot when dinner was done.

I think if I were to make any changes, I might bump up the heat a little bit more with a little more paprika and cayenne pepper.

Rick Stein’s beef curry was a pretty quick dish to pull together (less than 1/2 hour of hands-on time) and that’s one of the things I really appreciate about it. Curries can often be cumbersome and involved when cooking from scratch, and while many are worth the effort, I loved this dish for its relative simplicity which allowed it to fit well within my weeknight meal repertoire.

As written, the recipe performed well. I sliced my onions nice and thin on my Japanese Benriner so that when they caramelized and then braised they almost melted into the sauce. I found another teaspoon garam masala added at the end was perfect for my palate. As for the golden raisins, I can never find them and substituted regular raisins with no problem at all.

As with most curries, the condiments you serve along with really make the dish and that was the only place where I felt the recipe fell a bit short. Stein seems to suggest that a few different condiments might work well, whereas I would not have merely recommended them, but made them an integral part of the dish. Eaten straight up over jasmine rice (which is how I served it), the curry was just okay, but with the hot mango chutney, sliced scallions. crushed peanuts, additional grated coconut, and plain Greek yogurt that I added at the table, the dish really turned into something special. Modify the condiments as you wish, but please do make sure you add something salty and crunchy, something sweet, something spicy, and something creamy to really make this beef curry dish sing.

Loved how this beef stew came together so quickly. I used the recommended substitution for Kashmiri chile powder and ended up adding about 1/2 tablespoon extra garam masala at the end. The unsweetened coconut added a unique texture to the curry but I don’t think it added much to the overall flavor. I really liked the raisins and actually think sweetened coconut would have worked quite well. I served this with rice and enjoyed the leftovers the next day even more.