Growing up I never ate curry. We were a meat and three veg type family and as mum wasn’t a massive fan of cooking, we usually only ate things that were quick and easy to prepare. It should also be noted that neither myself nor mum liked chilli so my poor father who is a chilli fanatic, missed out.
Later in life I have developed a stronger palette and although I’m not a blow your head off chilli fan, I do like something with a bit of a kick so can pretty much aim for a medium curry.
Iv made a few curries at home with those Patak’s jars but always wanted to make my own. Normally I look at a recipes ingredients and if there’s too many, it scares me away but I had been feeling a need to make a curry from scratch for quite a while so went on the hunt last weekend when I was so hungover, all I wanted was something bad for dinner that would warm our hungover little hearts and clear my sinuses from not wearing a jacket the night before.
I searched for a while and found a few butter chicken recipes for the slow cooker – yes I was doing it in the slow cooker, I’m hungover ok, I can only cope with so much – but I find chicken can be a little dry in the slow cooker and beef to me says winter so after Googling for what felt like hours, I came across Lydia’s recipe at The Perfect Pantry and adapted it slightly to suit my needs.
The whole house smelt of curry! YUM! I popped on some brown rice with a hint of stock and turmeric for colour, some mini pappadums and garlic naan and we were good to go.
The moans of pleasure coming from Stud were all I needed. I’d done good 
Ingredients
3 Tbsp canola oil (I used Carotino)
3 large onions, cut in half and thinly sliced
3 Tbsp white wine vinegar
4-inch piece fresh ginger root, peeled and cut into chunks
10 cloves garlic, peeled
5 dried red chillis, stems removed
1/2 Tbsp turmeric
1/2 Tbsp ground coriander
1/2 Tbsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 Tbsp black peppercorns
1/2 Tbsp coarse sea salt
1/2 Tbsp brown or black mustard seeds
1Kg stewing beef, cubed
Method
Add 1 tablespoon of oil to a frying pan over medium heat. When the oil is warm, add the onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are cooked, 4-5 minutes.
While the onions are cooking, add the ginger, garlic, chilli, turmeric, coriander, garam masala, cinnamon and one tablespoon of the oil to the food processor and process into a paste. Scrape the paste into the slow cooker. Do not wash the food processor.
Stir the vinegar in to the onion mixture and cook until the liquid evaporates.
Transfer the mixture to a food processor along with the remaining tablespoon of oil, and puree. Scrape the puree into the slow cooker.
With a mortar and pestle or a dedicated spice grinder (a coffee grinder works well, as long as you’re not using it for coffee!), combine the black peppercorns, salt and mustard seed, and crush together into a coarse powder.
Add that mixture to the slow cooker.
Add the beef and 1/4 cup of water to the slow cooker and, with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir everything together.
Set the cooker to HIGH and cook for 4 hours. Lift the lid after the first 3 hours in order to let it thicken, and give the vindaloo a good stir.
Serve hot, with rice, pappadums and naan.
