Topic: How to precook meat

[Mark J]

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.

[Muttley]

Thanks Mark.

What cut of meat do you use whan cooking lamb by this method.

I don't want to end up with fatty cubes of meat, which fillet looks as if it would produce, but the alternative is the very expensive chops which seem to be the only lean lamb you can buy.

I don't usually cook with lamb, but do rogan josh occasionally. I've found if you brown the lamb, it renders some of the fat, but the lamb ends up much chewier than BIR lamb.

[Mark J]

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

[Muttley]

Tried this out at the weekend with a rogan josh, and was very pleased with the result.

The recipie is a Mudhra Jaffry one, and it's always produced excellent results except that even the most expenive lamb became tough with the cooking method selected.

This technique produces beautifully tender lamb.

Thanks Mark J.

[Muttley]

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.
 

[Mark J]

I must confess I have never cooked beef in this manner (the time I gave was from another recipe that stated 35mins for lamb and 40 for beef). However I often cook a Chinese dish (hangs head in shame) called pekenese beef stew that takes regular stewing steak and produces spectacular results.

With this dish I brown off the cubed beef for a few minutes and then add to a casserole pot with the other ingredients, I then cook it for 1 hour and 20 minutes stirring every 20 mins, the beef turns out extremely tender. I wonder if you just got a bad cut of beef (although I reckon that the BIR's will use cheap cuts of meat and get the tendernous via the cooking process)

[sultry]

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.

[traveller]

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!!  That has never happened before - I always used boneless skinless in the US and never had this problem....I am going to do a different style chicken this time and see what happens - I am truly puzzled!!

[raygraham]

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

[traveller]

Oops, what I meant Ray was that it wouldnt cook after the usual 20 minutes so I kept cooking it, hoping it would turn edible!!  The only clue I have is the tomato paste here could have something in it that prevented my chicken from cooking!!  other than that, everything was the same as in the US.