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Massaman Curry [Video]

Made-from-scratch Beef Massaman Curry! This epic Thai coconut curry takes time to make but you’ll be rewarded with a rich, fragrant curry with fall apart meat and beautiful layers of flavours that you can’t buy in a jar.
Not the fastest recipe in the world, but worth it! Rich and beautifully fragrant with the signature hint of smokiness, this mild curry is one of the most popular Thai curries ever. While many restaurants tend to tone down the spices and substantially increase the sugar, this recipe is based on authentic versions by Thai food authorities including David Thompson and Sujet Saenkham of Spice I Am.
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time2 hours
Total Time2 hours 30 minutes
Servings: 4
Author: Nagi Maehashi - Recipe Tin Eats

Ingredients

HOMEMADE CURRY PASTE VERSION - FOR STORE-BOUGHT CURRY PASTE VERSION, See Notes

Spice Paste:

  • 1 stalk lemongrass (Note 1)
  • 6 dried red Asian chillis (not Thai! Note 2)
  • 4 eschallots peeled (Note 3)
  • 5 cloves garlic unpeeled
  • 2.25 inch (3cm) piece galangal peeled, cut into ¾ cm / ½″ slices (Note 4)
  • 4-6 Tbsp water

Spice Paste Dried Spices:

  • ½ tsp ground cloves
  • ¾ tsp cumin
  • ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
  • ¾ tsp coriander
  • ½ tsp cardamom
  • ½ tsp cinnamon

Beef:

  • 1.4 lb (700g) beef chuck cut into 4cm / 2.5″ cubes (Note 5)
  • 2 cups (500ml) cups beef broth low sodium
  • 2 bay leaves

Curry Sauce:

  • ¼ cup (65ml) vegetable oil
  • 14 oz (400ml) coconut milk (full fat, 1 can)
  • 1 quill cinnamon
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 tsp tamarind paste/puree (Note 6)
  • 1 Tbsp fish sauce
  • 1 Tbsp white sugar
  • 2 medium-small potatoes peeled and cut into 2.5cm / 1″ pieces

Garnish & serving:

  • 3 Tbsp peanuts roughly chopped
  • Finely sliced red chilli (optional)
  • Asian fried shallots (optional, Note 7)
  • Steamed jasmine rice

Instructions

Lemongrass (see video):

  • Remove reedy outer layers and trim lemongrass per Note 1.
  • Reserve all the trimmings (for beef). Finely chop the white part (for paste.

Beef:

  • Place Beef ingredients in a medium saucepan. Liquid should almost cover beef but not completely – if not, add water.
  • Add lemongrass trimmings.
  • Bring to boil over high heat, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 1.5 – 2 hours until beef is fork tender.
  • Remove beef. If there’s much more than 1.5 cups liquid, simmer to reduce. Set liquid aside.

Char Aromatics (char = flavour!):

  • Place heavy based skillet over high heat until smoking (no oil).
  • Add eschalot, garlic and galangal in skillet. Get a nice char on them, then remove (~1.5 minutes).
  • Add dried chillies into skillet, char 10 seconds or so on each side until charred, then remove.
  • Once cool enough to handle: Grate galangal. Peel garlic. Break chillies in half, shake out seeds and discard.

Spice Paste Dried Spices:

  • Wipe the skillet used above or use a clean one. Heat on medium heat, add Spice Paste Dried Spices. Toast for 30 seconds or until they start to smell fragrant – do not let them burn. Immediately transfer into bowl.

Curry Paste:

  • Place chillies in food processor. (Note 8) Blitz until finely chopped.
  • Add galangal, finely chopped lemongrass, the toasted Spice Paste Dried Spices, and remaining Spice Paste ingredients, starting with 4 tbsp water. Blitz until smooth – add more water if required.

Curry Sauce:

  • Place oil in a pot or large skillet over medium high heat. Add curry paste and cook for 3 minutes until the liquid has cooked out and it’s thick and fragrant.
  • Add coconut milk, stir to incorporate.
  • Add cinnamon, star anise and reserved beef braising liquid. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 3 minutes.
  • Stir in fish sauce, tamarind and sugar, stir.
  • Add potatoes and cook for 7 minutes or until potatoes are tender, turning as required.
  • Add beef and simmer for 2 minutes or until sauce has reduced and thickened.
  • Adjust: saltiness with fish sauce, sour with tamarind and sweet with sugar. The taste should be sweet, salty and sour, with more emphasis on the sweet and sour notes. Top up with a little water if the curry seems too thick
  • Serve over jasmine rice, garnished with peanuts (essential!) plus optional crispy Asian shallots and fresh chillies.

Notes

STORE BOUGHT CURRY PASTE directions: Use Maesri brand if you can, it’s the cheapest and best by far. Use the whole can – 114g/4oz – or the same amount of other brands. 
  • Follow Beef steps to cook beef and make broth;
  • Skip all curry paste making steps;
  • Under Curry Sauce steps, use store bought paste instead of homemade PLUS 2 garlic cloves minced, 2 tsp minced ginger plus 1 tbsp lemongrass (paste OR finely grated fresh, white part only).
  • Cook it off for 3 minutes per recipe, proceed with recipe as written.
1. Lemongrass preparation: Cut lemongrass to leave you with just the bottom 8 cm / 3″. Peel off the reedy outer layers, then trim the tough base off, leaving you with a pale green / white stem. This part will be used for the paste. The trimmings are used in the beef braising broth.
2. Chillies – This curry is not supposed to be spicy, just a warm hum. This recipe is made with the generic Asian dried chillies purchased from Asian grocery stores which are usually not that spicy. It is not made with Thai Chillies which are considerably spicier (cut down to 2 or 3).
The spiciness of chillies (dried and fresh) is like playing roulette – at different times of the year, they go up and down. The only way to really control how spicy your curry will be is to taste the chilli. If it’s not that spicy, proceed with the recipe. 
But if it’s spicy, then feel free to dial it back – 3 is a good starting point, 2 if you are really concerned.
You can substitute with other dried red chillies but always check spiciness first!
3. Eschalots = French onions = those small red / purple baby onions. Can sub with 1 red onion, peeled and quartered.
4. Galangal – Looks like ginger but with a red skin and harder to cut. Tastes like citrusy/piney ginger. Found at everyday supermarkets in Australia. If you really can’t find it, sub with ginger + zest of 1 lime.
5. Beef – Massaman is supposed to be made with large pieces of meat, rather than small bite size pieces, so the meat needs to be slow cooked to become tender and absorbs the flavour of the braising liquid. Can be substituted with brisket but make sure you trim off the thick layer of fat, otherwise the sauce ends up too greasy. Gravy beef is also suitable, as long as you can find large pieces.
OTHER PROTEINS: Pork, goat, rabbit, bone in chicken pieces, lamb. Cut into large pieces and just simmer until fork tender, adjusting liquid level with water if required to end up with about 1 1/2 cups liquid at the end. I’ve had Massaman Lamb Shank at a restaurant and it was EPIC!
6. Tamarind – Sour paste used in South East Asian cooking. Sold in jars at supermarkets in Australia in the Asian section. Can substitute with lime juice (2 tsp) or vinegar (1 tsp).
7. Asian Fried Shallots – Little pops of salty, fried, crispy goodness I’m addicted to! Sold in the Asian aisle of supermarkets in Australia but better value at Asian stores!
8. Blitzing – You need a decent food processor for any curry paste, to ensure it’s powerful enough to blitz the ingredients into a smooth paste.
9. Storage: terrific served fresh and also keeps well in the fridge for 3 days. I imagine it freezes well – just give the sauce a good stir to smooth it out.
10. Recipe source: Another RecipeTin Family effort! We find many Thai restaurants tend to dumb down the spices and make the sauce too sweet. So we looked to more authentic recipes from David Thompson (the man!) and Sujet Saenkham of Spice I Am fame for inspiration on how Massaman curry really should be done. After three or four cracks at it, we love we’ve ended up and hope you will love our Massaman curry as much as we do!