This is a very special recipe indeed, and I have fallen in love with it time and time again as I encountered it across several households in Colombo.
While perfecting my recipe, my best friend Venya’s brother, Indi, gave me some amazing tips which I am sharing here with you. This curry is a taste revolution – not found very easily in London. It is a speciality curry, one that is primarily made in Sinhalese homes in Sri Lanka. After I developed this recipe for my cookbook, I even shared it with a new Sri Lankan restaurant opening in Soho called Kolamba. They loved the recipe and now it’s one of their star dishes. So give it a go at home too!
Ingredients
- 500g beef rib or beef shin, cut into equal chunks (a cut with a good level of animal fat running through it for slow cooking)
- 340g of bone marrow
- 1 red onion (100g) chopped
- 15 curry leaves
- 5 large cloves garlic
- 40 g ginger
- 3 teaspoons ghee
- 10 cloves, 5 cardamoms, 1 tsp cumin pounded
- 1 cinnamon quill
- 1 cup coconut water (from the fresh coconut is best, but from a pack will do as well)
- 400ml thin coconut milk
- 400ml thick coconut milk
- 30g jaggery (can substitute with very dark, treacle like sugar or palm sugar)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 4 tbsp roasted curry powder
- 2 tbsp roasted chilli powder
- 1.5 tbsp turmeric powder
Method
- In a deep bottomed stock pot, melt 2 teaspoons of ghee and get it hot. Then brown all the meat in batches making sure that there is good caramelisation on the beef. Fat will be released from the meat into the ghee, you want to see that because it will add flavour to temper. Set meat aside to rest whilst prepping the other ingredients.
- To the same stock pot, add in a teaspoon of ghee and melt. When hot, add the onions and start to cook down. When the onions start to wilt, add the curry leaves, ginger and garlic and all the spices. Then add the coconut water. Cook down. Add in the meat, the bone marrow and then mix in the curry powder, chilli and turmeric powders. Mix well. Add in the thin coconut milk and allow to cook in the stock pot for 1 hour on a medium to low flame.
- Finally, add in the thick coconut milk and cook it for a further 1.5 hours or until the meat is tender. Make sure you stir it from time to time to ensure no sticking on the bottom of the pot.
- Once the curry has cooked through and is off the heat add in the jaggery and allow to melt into the meat and gravy. Stir to make sure the jaggery is fully incorporated. Finally serve with a piping hot fluffy basmati rice!
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