This is a recipe I use for precooking all meat I use in any Indian dish, it produces a very tasty and tender result.

Ingredients:

4 TBSP vegetable oil
Half a small onion chopped
4 cloves
1 black cardamom
2 green cardamom
2 inch stick cinnamon
1 bay leaf
1 TSP curry powder (depending on volume of water being added)
2 TBSP yoghurt (not low fat)
1 TSP lemon juice

Method:

Bring the oil to a medium heat and add the onion, and whole spices, fry for a minute then reduce the heat slightly.

Add the meat, yoghurt, lemon juice and curry powder (You can cook a lot of meat in a big pan using this method, increase the volume of curry power and whole spices if cooking loads, this recipe is good for up to 1Kg of meat) and give it all a good stir round for 1 minute then add boiling water to a level just so it covers the meat.

You now need to simmer for the following time:

Chicken ? 20 minutes.
Lamb ? 35 minutes.
Beef ? 40 minutes.

Hi mate,

I have used waitrose loin fillet which was bloody expensive (?22/Kg) and also I have used a leg of lamb joint which I have cut up into lean cubes, which is a pain to prepare but it seems to be the only reliable and cheap(ish) way to get lamb from a supermarket

I've now tried this for cooking beef, and I don't know what went wrong, but the result is a disaster!

After the recommended length of time, the meat so chewey it was all but impossible to eat.

So I let it cook for another half hour, no change.

It's now been simmering for about 6 hours and is just about edible.

Any ideas what I could have done wrong. The only thing that was in any way unusual was that I went to great lengths to bring the meat/liquid up to temperature very slowly as I wanted to simmer at just under 100c. THis meant it spent some minutes between 90 and 95. Could this have changed the meat in some way that prevented it cooking properly.

This is a real puzzle.

Wow you guys. The amount of time you take & the dedication to making the perfect curry. Absolutely brill. I had to laugh when Muttley said that the meat he was cooking was too chewy so he decided to cook it for a further 6 hours. It had me in stitches when i read it.

I applaud & bow down to your determination Muttley.

Quote from: paast10 on August 31, 2005, 04:26 PM
Is it better to cut the chicken in pieces and then add it, or add the entire boneless skinless piece?
I cooked chicken by my normal method? recently (boneless chicken) here for the first time in a gravy dish and after 2 hours, the chicken was so tough it hurt my jaw to chew it!!

Hi Payal,

I reckon cooking chicken for 2 hours is the clue to the disaster and not the type of chicken or whether it is chunks or whole breast.
Chicken by it's nature cooks very quickly. A whole breast will be done in a fry pan in a few minutes and then ready to add to a dish. Putting it in raw will still only need 20-30 mins.

If you look at the thread above by Mark J his for pre-cooked chicken needs only 20 mins cooking time. Try Bruce Edwards pre-cooking method. The chicken is moist and succulent and certainly not chewy. Less is nearly always best!

Ray