Venison Massaman Curry

The freezer emptying mission continues and I've decided to use some venison I bought a couple of months ago from Bewdley Sunday market and will pop it in the freezer ready to be eaten next weekend. I've not tried this before but it gets rave reviews from those who have.   Massaman Curry is a Southern Thai curry which has a lot of Indian influence.  Massaman is an old way of saying “Muslim”, for many of the dry spices were carried to Thailand by early Muslim traders. History lesson over. Even though it sounds quite exotic I managed to get all of the ingredients from Sainsburys. 

Ingredients

85g unsalted peanuts

400ml can coconut cream

4 tbsp massaman curry paste

600g stewing venison or wild boar, cut into large chunks

450g waxy potatoes, cut into 2½ cm chunks

1 onion, cut into thin wedges

4 kaffir lime leaves

1 cinnamon stick

1 tbsp tamarind paste

1 tbsp palm or soft light brown sugar

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced, to serve

Basmati rice.

Method

Heat oven to 200C then roast the peanuts on a baking tray for 5 minutes until golden brown. When cool enough to handle, roughly chop. Reduce oven to 180C.

Heat 2 tbsp coconut cream in a large casserole dish with a lid. Add the curry paste and fry for 1 minute, then stir in the beef and fry until well coated and sealed. Stir in the rest of the coconut with half a can of water, the potatoes, onion, lime leaves, cinnamon, tamarind, sugar, fish sauce and most of the peanuts. Bring to a simmer, then cover and cook for 2 hours in the oven until the meat is tender.  Alternatively, cook in the slow cooker for 8 hours or overnight on a low setting. Sprinkle with sliced chilli and the remaining peanuts, then serve straight from the dish with fluffy basmati rice.

Recipe adapted from Good Food magazine, April 2010