Authentic Thai Massaman Curry

A recipe given to me by a woman from Thailand I met 15 years ago. I've kept this recipe with me, written down all this time and have made it so much I know it by heart. Never misses.

Course Dinner, Main Course

Cuisine Thai

Prep Time 10

Servings servings

Ingredients

To Braise the Beef

2 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp Massaman Curry Paste (Mae Ploy brand preferred)
2.5 lbs Beef chuck roast fat, trimmed, cut into bite-sized cubes
2 cups beef bone broth

For the Curry

2 tbsp coconut oil
3 tbsp Massaman Curry Paste (Mae Ploy brand preferred)
1 1/2 19oz cans coconut cream or full fat coconut milk (Mae Ploy brand preferred)
3 medium russet potatoes, cubed
3 large carrots, large rough cut
2 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
4 tbsp coconut or palm sugar
3 tbsp tamarind concentrate (found in your local Asian market or on Amazon)
1/3 cup roasted peanuts or cashews
2 kaffir lime leaves (optional)
1 handful cilantro, chopped
lime wedges

Instructions

Braise the Beef

Turn the oven to 325º and place a medium dutch oven (with a lid) on the stove top on medium heat. Heat the coconut oil in the dutch oven for a minute or two then add the curry paste and stir fry until fragrant. Add the beef cubes, stir around to coat evenly in the curry paste and brown slightly. Add the beef stock, stir, turn the temp up and bring to a simmer. Cover, turn off the heat and put the dutch oven in the heated oven for 90 minutes.

Make the Curry

Once the beef is done, remove the meat into a bowl and set aside. Put the dutch oven over medium high heat and reduce by about half.
While that reduces, heat another large dutch oven (with a lid) on the stove top on medium heat. Add the coconut oil and curry paste and stir fry until fragrant. Add 1/2 can of coconut cream (or coconut milk) and mix to combine. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the mixture bubbles red.
Add the reduced cooking liquid from the beef, the remaining coconut milk, the braised beef, potatoes, and carrots, and kaffir lime leaves to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce the temp to medium and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add the fish sauce, sugar, tamarind liquid and peanuts and cook for another 15 minutes. Taste the liquid - if too salty, add water 1/4 cup at a time.

Serve

Traditionally this is served with rice. My wife can't have grain so we started using a mix of finely chopped cabbage and cauliflower rice, quickly stir fried in a little olive oil with salt and pepper. Because of the potatoes, eating with rice can be a bit heavy so we've come to prefer the cabbage/cauliflower, but a good scoop of jasmine rice is hard to beat with this.
Serve in a bowl topped with some chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lime.