Beef Massale-Slow cooked cari from Reunion island.
Hello foodies, Here is my new recipe, the "Cari Massale de boeuf". This cari is often made on the islands of Reunion and Madagascar. It is a stew or curry traditionally made with chicken or lamb rather than beef.  This recipe was inspired from memories of my teenage years.  As i grew up, i was exposed to different cultures. Even though Reunion island is a French territory it is very far and i have never been there. Nevertheless, i had friends from there and their parents were cooking so well. Dishes and flavours i have never had before, more "Exotic", spicy and with a lot of spices. This Recipe uses a slow cooker and therefore a cheap cut of meat. So if like me in this penury of chicken and lamb and can only find beef and need to food prep or feed your family. this is the perfect dish to feed many on a low budget ($4.10/per person). Enjoy and Bon Appetit biensur
Servings: 8 yield(s)
Prep Time: 40 mins
Cook Time: 420 mins
Total Time: 460 mins
Ingredients
  • 1.8 kg beef skirt (Rump or a stew cut of beef)
  • 100 g Brown onion
  • 20 ml Oil
  • 1.5 l Tomato sauce (or tin tomatoes)
  • 200 Tomatoes (Fresh)
  • Salt & pepper
    • for the Massale cari paste
  • 100 g Ginger
  • 10 Garlic cloves
  • 5 Chillies (bird eyes)
  • 10 g Garamassala powder
  • 10 g Turmeric powder
  • 10 ml Oil
  • 1 Kaffir lime (also called Combava)
Instructions
  1. Gather all your ingredients for this recipe.
    2. The Cari Paste
  2. Here i am using a mortar and pestle. If you don't have one just chopped everything or use and food processor or blender or even a nutribullet :) Peel your ginger and garlic.
  3. Place the chopped ginger in the mortar, chopped roughly the chilies.
  4. Add the garlic cloves.
  5. Add a bit of olive oil.
  6. Add the Garamassala.
  7. Add the tumeric.
  8. With the help of the pestle, puree everything together.
  9. Keep going until everything looks like a paste.
  10. This is a kaffir lime. I prefer it over the leaves for this dish.
  11. Finely grate the skin of the lime.
  12. It has a very strong scent.
  13. Mix it through the paste.
  14. Gather the paste together and keep it aside.
    15. Preparing the onions, tomatoes and kaffir lime
  15. Peel and slice your onions.
  16. Core your tomatoes.
  17. Dice the tomatoes to approximately 1 cm.
  18. They should look like this and keep them aside until needed.
  19. Slice or peel of the rest of the kaffir lime skin and keep it aside for letter.
    20. Prepare the meat
  20. Trim a little bit of the beef. As this cooks for a long time it will break most of the meat fibers and sinew. Just remove the largest part.
  21. Cut your meat in 4 to 5 cm cubes.
  22. Skirt steak can also be cook quickly or used for Jerky if you cut it finely.
    23. Time to cook it all
  23. I switched on my slow cooker on High. As i have solar panel i cook it during the day (Energy saving), i know few people uses a slow cooker at night.
  24. Grab a "sauteuse" a fry pan and add some oil into it. Bring it to very high heat.
  25. Add your sliced onions and you should hear pscccccccccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!
  26. Stir the onions after 2 minutes. (Make them sweat).
  27. Keep stirring them until you see them getting a little caramelised (Brown).
  28. Add your Massale paste.
  29. Cook and stir for a minute to develop the flavours.
  30. Once done put the onions and paste in your slow cooker.
  31. Keep your frying pan on high heat and heat up a little bit mo.re oil.
  32. Add few pieces of meat and seared the meat to a nice brown colour on one side. this is crucial for the meat to remain juicy and tender. We call it it seared meat as it seal the juices inside the meat. It should take 1 minute. Do not overload the frying pan. As you put too much meat in the pan, it cools it down and the meat start to release it juices and your cary (stew ) will be chewy and tough.
  33. Turn the pieces one by one and cook for another 1 minute. As you can see the meat is brown and it s a good sign. No juices are dispersed in the pan and that is another good sign. Sealed/seared all the meat a little at a time.
  34. As you sealed the meat, transfer it to the slow cooker.
  35. Once the meat is done, add your chopped tomatoes to the pan and cook the tomatoes until the bottom of the pan becomes clean. By doing this you are detaching and collection all the flavours and natural sugar from the onions, paste, and meat.
  36. Add the tomatoes to the slow cooker.
  37. Stir it all.
  38. Add the tomato sauce
  39. Stir it all.
  40. Add the kaffir lime skin and a big pinch of salt and stir it all. Please the lead on top of the slow cooker and bring it to a gentle boil then turn the switch to low or slow cooking.
  41. This photo was 3 hours later you can the slow reduction of the juices and sauce.
  42. 6.5 hours later, The sauce has reduced even more and your meat is ready. Check the seasoning. NO thickener added here, no starch, gluten free and natural flavours.
  43. Check the meat, by slowly pushing the meat on the board, it should simply breakdown and fall apart.
  44. I served the cary Massale de boeuf with Basmati rice, fresh chilies and coriander leaves... It was so yummy .. Bon Appetit Frenchy
Recipe Notes

You can cook it, cool it down and freeze it in portion for up to 3 months. I used skirt beef for it but you could also use rump for it. If you do it with lamb just cook it for 3 hours and chicken just for 2 hours.