Whenever the word stew comes to my mind, it remembers me of christmas and easter breakfasts. Stew has occupied a special place in my breakfast table since childhood. Stew was a mandatory breakfast dish on all our special occasions at home.

You can prepare stew using beef, chicken, mutton, and vegetables.The recipe I am sharing here is of beef stew. It is a one pot beef recipe. I had used pressure cooker to prepare this delicious recipe of stew.

This is a coconut milk curry in which beef is stewed along with potatoes and carrot. The addition of spices like cardamom, cinnamon and cloves enhances the flavour of this curry. They are best served with appam, kallappam ( link given at end) and idiyappam.

This is a healthy and wholesome recipe of beef with the goodness of fresh coconut milk. Coconut milk makes the stew thicker and tastier. The beef is pressure cooked in the second milk of coconut. If you want to make this dish more spicier, you can add pepper powder as per your taste. Let us move to the recipe now and learn how to prepare this easy and simple beef stew.

Ingredients :

• Beef, cut into small pieces – 1 kg
• Garlic crushed – 6 pods
• Potatoes, cut into medium sized cubes – 2
• Carrots, cut into cubes – 1
• Oil – 3 tablespoon
• Salt – to taste
• Cashewnuts – 8
• Raisins – 10
• Coconut milk – 2 cups

Take out the first thick milk by squeezing the coconut with 1/4 cup warm water. Add 1.5 cup water more to the coconut and take out the second lot of milk.

1.) To grind :

• Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon
• Pepper – 1 tablespoon
• Coriander powder – 1 tablespoon
• Cardamoms – 3
• Cloves – 4
• Cinnamon – 1″ sized 3 pieces

2.) To fry :

• Shallots, medium sized – 3
• Ginger, sliced – 2″ piece
• Green chillies slit – 2
• Curry leaves – 2 sprig

Method of preparation :

• Grind the ingredients mentioned under bracket (1) and keep aside
• Heat oil in a pressure cooker and fry cashewnuts, raisins and ingredients mentioned under bracket (2) to a light golden colour one by one
• Add the ground masala and fry it on a low flame, till the oil starts floating
• Mix the crushed garlic, salt and meat together
• Cover and cook for 10 minutes
• Now add the potatoes, carrot and second milk of coconut
• Mix well and pressure cook till the meat gets cooked well
• Lastly add the first thick coconut milk
• Leave it on low flame for 5 minutes stirring well
• Take off from the flame and serve hot.