If the grocer run is weekly rather than daily, you need recipes that freeze paste, keep limes working, and still taste of spice on a Thursday. Geelong is that kind of pantry: Pakington specialty shelves, a decent supermarket herb bunch, fish when it has landed, potatoes that actually grew in a climate like this. These recipes do not copy Melbourne’s relish or Ballarat’s tom kha. The unique complete recipe below is a slow massaman-style beef with potatoes — a pot that waits, which is a regional virtue.
Read the Geelong hub if you are eating out. Cook this if you would rather stay in from the wind off the bay.
A weekly shop that still works
Buy once:
- jasmine rice in a bag large enough to matter
- fish sauce, coconut milk (a few tins), palm sugar, tamarind if you see it
- massaman curry paste, or the spices to approximate: cinnamon stick, cardamom, cumin, coriander seed, clove
- peanuts or peanut butter for the pot
- chuck steak or gravy beef, onions, potatoes (Dutch cream or similar)
- limes, garlic, Asian shallots if available
- a bunch of coriander you will use in two days, not five
- freeze lime leaves and any leftover paste in ice-cube trays
Holy basil and green papaya are a bonus, not a promise, on a Geelong Tuesday. Plan krapow for the day you find the basil. Plan this massaman for the day you have time to let a pot tick.
Seafood: use what landed. It does not belong in this particular pot. A Friday fish is a frypan with fish sauce, lime and chilli, or the saucepan tom yum logic from the Docklands page — but cook that from Geelong stock, do not copy the prawn quantities as a ritual.
Slow massaman-style beef with potatoes
Serves four to six with rice. Massaman is a Muslim-influenced Thai curry: spice-led, coconut, often mild, patient with onion and potato. Home versions vary. This one fries a paste, browns beef, and simmers until the meat gives up. It is not a restaurant recreation and it is not a Western beef stew with a teaspoon of curry powder.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 4 tablespoons massaman curry paste (bought is fine; fry it properly)
- 800g chuck steak, cut into large cubes
- 400ml coconut milk
- 250ml water or light stock
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 cardamom pods, cracked
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon tamarind water (or 1 teaspoon tamarind paste loosened in water)
- 2 teaspoons palm sugar
- 2 bay leaves, optional
- 2 onions, cut into wedges
- 400g potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
- 3 tablespoons roasted peanuts, plus extra to serve
- Lime wedges and jasmine rice, to serve
- A small handful of coriander
Method
Heat the oil in a heavy pot over medium heat. Fry the paste until it is fragrant and the oil separates, several minutes — this step is the difference between a tin of coconut with a hint of spice and an actual curry. Add a splash of the coconut milk if the paste sticks. Push the paste aside, add the beef, and colour it as well as you can in a crowded pot. Pour in the remaining coconut milk and the water. Add cinnamon, cardamom, fish sauce, tamarind, palm sugar, bay and half the peanuts. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook gently until the beef is nearly tender, about 90 minutes on the stove or longer in a low oven.
Add onion and potato. Simmer, uncovered if the sauce is thin, until the potato is tender and the sauce coats a spoon, another 25–35 minutes. Taste: salty, a little sour from tamarind, a little sweet, spice in the nose. Adjust fish sauce, tamarind and palm sugar. The heat should be gentle; if you want more, add fresh chilli at the table rather than burning the paste.
Rest the pot ten minutes. Serve with rice, extra peanuts, lime and coriander. The lime is not optional; massaman needs a sharp edge at the end.
Notes
Make it a day ahead if you can. It settles. Freeze portions without potato if you prefer — potato goes mealy in a freezer — and add fresh potato when you reheat. Chicken thigh works on a shorter simmer; it is a different sweetness. Vegetarian: chickpeas and extra potato, or pumpkin, with a paste that does not contain shrimp; read the jar, and read the food guide.
This is the pot to put on when people may arrive from the Bellarine at slightly different times. It waits. A salad does not. If you have limes and a cabbage, dress a quick cucumber-and-cabbage salad with lime, fish sauce and chilli to sit beside it, using the dressing logic from the Carlton salad without stealing that recipe’s noodles.
For pad Thai and green curry, use the main recipes. For another regional night, Ballarat and Bendigo cook different pots on purpose.