panaeng nuea (dry beef curry)

Hubs made this beef curry for us the other night from his Food of Thailand cookbook. We had to substitute a few ingredients, as we couldn't find Massaman curry or shrimp paste locally, and the closest Asian market is an hour away. Hubs ended up making the curry (I'll include the recipe below) and using ground dried shrimp instead of shrimp paste. By the way, my sensitive nose did not appreciate the dried shrimp. But I couldn't detect it in the prepared dinner. We also didn't have roasted peanuts on hand, so we subbed chunky peanut butter. We're pretty flexible here.

It tasted like beef, curry, and peanut sauce all mixed together. Delicious!

The more exotic ingredients will probably necessitate a trip to an Asian market. If you can't find Massaman curry paste, I've included the recipe for it below. Both are available in the printable version.

Panaeng Nuea (Dry Beef Curry)
from The Food of Thailand; Periplus Publishing
(Printable version)

1 tablespoon coriander seeds, ground
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, ground
3 tablespoons Massaman cury paste (see below)
½ cup coconut cream
12 ounces beef, cut into thin strips
1 ½ cups coconut milk
½ cup ground roasted peanuts
1 ½ - 2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons chopped palm sugar
6 kaffir lime leaves, torn in half
1 red chile, thinly sliced
white rice

• Mix the ground coriander and cumin with the Massaman curry paste.
• Heat coconut cream until some of the oil surfaces, then add the curry paste and slowly bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
• Put in beef strips and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add coconut milk, peanuts, fish sauce and palm sugar.
• Stir well and simmer until the meat is tender and the oil has come out of the coconut milk.
• Add the kaffir lime leaves and chili. Remove from heat and serve with white rice.

Massaman Curry Paste

3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon finely chopped galangal
1 heaping tablespoon finely sliced lemongrass
2 cloves
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
5 black peppercorns
3 dried chiles, cut, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes and deseeded
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon shrimp paste

• Dry fry (without oil) the shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, cloves, coriander and cumin seeds in a wok over low heat for about 5 minutes, then grind into a powder.
• Add the rest of the ingredients, except the shrimp paste, and blend to mix well.
• Combine the blended mixture and the shrimp paste and blend again.

Makes ½ cup of curry paste.