Clay Pot Coconut Curry Beef

You can swing this with lamb as well. Did this for The Devine Dinner. This was my first time slow cooking with curry but it turned out great. You can do this in a enamled cast iron Dutch over, heavy pot, or slow cooker/crock pot if you like. If you use a clay pot be sure to soak it for at least 15 minutes in cool water before using.

2lbs of Beef Chuck or Lamb leg/shoulder
2 cans of coconut milk
1 cup of white wine
Regular plain yogurt
3 lemons
1 yellow onion
Red and yellow bell peppers
Shallot
Garlic
Punjab curry powder
Ground mustard
Mint
Salt
Pepper
Bay Leaf
Olive oil

Rub your meat with salt and pepper and drop it into a gallon size Ziploc storage bag. Add one can of coconut milk, a cup of yogurt, the zest of one lemon, a table spoon of the curry powder and a couple of table spoons of olive oil. Seal it and shake to combine. Allow this to marinate in the fridge for at least six hours but better if it is over night.

Take out the meat and let is rest for an hour or so to come up to room temp. Save the marinade liquid. Brown the meat in a heavy pot or dutch oven with olive oil over medium heat. Be careful not to get it to hot and watch carefully because the sugar in the coconut milk and yogurt will blacken and get bitter. Remove the meat and set aside. Chop your onion , peppers, shallot, and garlic and add to the pot till the veggies are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste as they cook. Toss in some roughly chopped or torn mint at the end. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and scrape all the yummy bits off the bottom of the pan.

Transfer the veggies to the clay pot. Set the meat on top of them and add the bay leaf, some whole pepper corns, ground mustard, and the marinade liquid and the juice of a lemon. Add more coconut milk so that the meat is covered about half way up. Put the clay pot in a COLD (do not pre-heat your over if using caly ware lest you want it to crack and spill your goods all over the bottom) and turn it to 350. Spend the next 4 hours napping, checking facebook updates, or watching a sporting event. Remove and fork test the meat. It should fall apart wit a stern look or light poke. Enjoy.

If you don't have a clay pot you can do it in a dutch oven at 350 for the same ammount of time or stove top in a heavy pot over low heat for 2-3 hours. Keep an eye on the stove pot method and make sure you don't lose too much liquid through reduction.

As always let me know if i left anything out or if you have questions. Such is the madness of cooking from the hip and not having/using recipes.

Word.