Beef • Thai
Slow-cooked beef in a rich coconut sauce with sweet potato and potato. One of the most forgiving curries you can make.
Four main ingredients. Thats really all you need. Beef, onions, coconut milk and curry paste and youve got a curry that tastes like it took way more effort than it did. The potato and sweet potato are optional extras that make it go further and add a bit of texture but even without them this is a proper meal. If you can brown meat and turn on an oven you can make this. Theres nothing here that requires any skill, just a bit of patience while it does its thing.
Beef chuck is the key. Its a tough cut that breaks down completely after three hours low and slow which gives you that fall apart texture without any extra effort. You get 2kg of meat out of this recipe which divided into 10 serves means youre eating well all week for the cost of one takeaway meal. Each serve hits 39.9g of protein which for a curry is genuinely impressive.
Most people know Thai curries for being fresh and punchy ... green curry with lemongrass and galangal, red curry with chilli heat. Massaman is completely different because it uses warm spices that come from Persian and Indian trade routes, things like cinnamon, cardamom, star anise and cloves. These spices made their way into southern Thailand through Muslim traders centuries ago and massaman is basically the result of two culinary traditions meeting in the middle. Its why it tastes more like a slow cooked Indian curry than anything else in Thai cuisine.
They actually do different jobs in the dish. Sweet potato breaks down a bit as it cooks and thickens the sauce naturally while adding a slight sweetness that works really well with the warm spices in the paste. Regular potato holds its shape and gives you something substantial to bite into. Together they make the curry more filling and more interesting to eat. Both go in at the two hour mark because they only need about an hour and if you put them in at the start they turn to mush.
Massaman has been around in Thailand for at least 400 years, possibly longer. The name is thought to come from musalmaan, the Thai word for Muslim, which reflects its origins with Muslim traders in southern Thailand. Historically it was considered a royal dish, served at the Thai court, which probably explains why the spice blend is so much more elaborate than a typical everyday Thai curry. In 2011 CNN ranked massaman number one on their list of the worlds 50 most delicious foods. Which is a big call but honestly its hard to argue with.
Peanuts are traditional in massaman and pretty much all through Southeast Asian cooking. They add crunch, a bit of fat and a roasted flavour that cuts through the richness of the coconut sauce. Pineapple sounds unusual if youve never had it with curry but the acidity and sweetness balance out the spice in the paste really well. Add it fresh when serving not when you meal prep it, otherwise it goes soft and weird sitting in the sauce for days. Same with the coriander. The chilli sauce is just personal preference but a bit of heat on top of the warm spices in the curry works well if you like it.