Garbage Beef Curry

On May 20, 2009 I picked up 160 lbs of beef from the Wagon Wheel Ranch in Mt. Airy, MD...this is an average amount of meat for a side of beef that I get from this ranch. I usually go through 2 sides per year. I'd get a whole cow once per year rather than 2 sides twice per year, but I don't really have enough freezer space...yet.

I'm pretty sure once I get enough freezer space, I'll eat 2 whole cows per year.

I haven't bought meat in a grocery store in over 3 years. I like buying whole animals direct from the people that raise them. This saves me having to go to a grocery store, which I hate having to do mainly because of the horrible music they play and (even worse) having to deal with the people in the grocery store that seem to not mind the horrible music they're being forced to listen to.

The last time I went to the store it was some horrible Shopper's Food Warehouse...they had a comment card and I wrote on it about how sucky their music was and how it was criminal...I was a little lit and I've been too embarrassed to go back since.

Getting whole animals also allows me to plan menus easier because with 6 months worth of meat laying around, I know what I have on hand so my little brain doesn't have to figure out what to buy at the store.

Since I picked up this most recent beast I've cooked and eaten all the best parts...all I have left are some organs, soup bones, round roasts, some sirloin and some stew meat. Stew meat (from what the butcher told me) is all the garbage meat left over after chopping up the rest of the meat. I'm fine with this, but She Say, my wife, usually doesn't enjoy eating it.

The stew meat is cut in 1 inch chunks...I think...I've never measured them, but they look about 1 inch...they're definitely not smaller than 1 inch and not bigger than 2 inches.

In 2 years of devouring whole beasts, I've never really found a whammo way to cook the stew beef...that is, until 2 days ago when I made the best curry in the whole wide world and nom de plumed it Garbage Beef Curry.

Here's how I did it:

I started with some red palm oil (2-4 TBS)...threw it in a pot and turned it up to lowish-medium-high (6 on my electric stove that goes to 10...you don't want palm oil too high or it won't taste like palm oil and more importantly it won't taste real good)...I took the stew meat and cut the cubes into 4ths...or 6ths, depending on how big the chunk was...I guess I ended up with pieces that were a quarter to half inch in size...threw the stew meat into the hot oil...let it brown...shook it around...added some chopped onion, chopped ginger and the peppers...('bout half cup onion, 3-4 TBS ginger and 4-6 peppers - mix of habaneros and some other ones I can't remember...maybe jalapenos and serranos...use any kind you like...make sure to wear your rubber gloves or you could get a major shock later)...I let those cook until they smelled good, then I threw in a can of coconut milk and stirred it all up...it looked pretty good so I threw in about a 1/4 cup of curry powder...I used junky generic Sam's club, but you could use any kind you like...after stirring it all up I threw in about a TBSP of crystallized ginger...I like the mix of fresh ginger and crystallized a lot...I let this cook for about 43 minutes and then threw in a fairly big tomato I chopped up....the stew beef was still tough when I tasted it, but the sauce was tasting real gans gut...after another hour the meat was nice and tender and ready to eat. I threw in maybe a half cup to a cup of sweetened coconut to finish things off. I would've added some raisins, currants or other dried fruit, but She Say doesn't eat a lot of carbs, hence her slinky, yet vivacious figure.

I was going to try a bowl, but She Say's mom was coming up to buy us Famous Dave's for takeout. I had to hide the curry before she arrived for fear she'd think I wouldn't be hungry. Trust me, it very rarely happens that I'm not hungry.

So, the curry aged in the fridge overnight. I had a bowl for breakfast Sunday morning and it was moy good.

If I made it again, I'd experiment with putting some ginger beer in right before serving it.

Natch, I gotta have a chef's helper while I'm cooking. Curry always makes me feel like a conquering Englishman raping and pillaging his way through Calcutta so I usually drink some gin, but I bought a bottle of Lillet a month ago or so and have been looking to try it...I'm not sure if Lillet is English, but it sounds pretty darn dignified English, so I'm guessing it's English or French...I have a recipe something called a Lilly, but you need Creme de Noyeaux and I didn't have any...I was just going to have a gin and tonic...but...then...no damn tonic...so...I was going to have straight Lillet, but then I was admiring the bottle and saw a recipe on the back for a Vesper martini...this sounded awesome...you know...like vespers at some Anglican, or catholic church...3 parts gin, 1 part vodka and 1/2 part Lillet...I went with 1 part Lillet as that was primarily what I was interested in...I'd give it a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10.25....wasn't great, but the gin was nice and the Lillet was kinda like a Concorde grape...god knows why they call for vodka...

Music for the day was Del Amitri's greatest hits...I think they're an Irish band, rather than English, but it seemed to fit the mood.