Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Hi, Ray here again.

Time to try out one of those yummy beef recipes from the Curry Focus website. I like onions and decide to try out the beef dopiaza.

I had everything that I needed except for the beef and fresh chillies so it was an easy shopping trip for the ingredients.

It takes about an hour to cook the beef so I made sure that I started to prepare the ingredients about 90 minutes before dinner was served.

The beef was pretty lean and there was no fat to cut off. All I had to do was chop it up into small bite-sized pieces.

I then realised that I needed to preheat the oven so quickly turned it on.

Then I peeled and chopped the 2 medium onions into thin slices.

Whilst the onions were cooking in the frying pan, I made up the spice paste and peeled, and chopped, the garlic cloves.

I put the onions aside when they were cooked and stir-fried the garlic and then the spice paste.

Into the casserole went the stir-fry, beef and water and then the casserole was put into the oven for 15 minutes with the lid on.

Whilst the beef was cooking, I peeled another onion and chopped it up pretty finely and then chopped up the 2 chillies.

When it was time, I added the chopped onion and chillies to the casserole for another 25 minutes.

It was pretty much easy going from now. I chopped up the coriander and left it and went and sat down for a read of the paper.

Time came to add the coriander and garam masala to the casserole.

I got the rice ready to microwave whilst the casserole was cooking away.

Now it was time to add the cooked onion. After 10 minutes, I removed the casserole lid, turned off the oven and started the rice.

The dopiaza was soon ready to eat and was quickly devoured at the dinner table with a nice glass of wine.

The overall verdict was “very good” and the meal rated a 7 out of 10.

Just a quick word of warning. There is a lot of onion in this meal. If you don’t like too much onion then maybe only cook one, instead of two, onions at the beginning of the recipe.

I loved the flavours and will definitely be making beef dopiaza again in the near future.

One of the main spices used in Indian cooking is turmeric. But more recently its medicinal uses and applications are being looked at.

For centuries, turmeric has been used treating a lots of illnesses such as swellings and inflammations, fever, liver and urinary disorders, menstrual disorders, arthritic and joint pain, colds, congestion and diarrhoea. It is also used as a diuretic, tonic and stimulant.

Curcumin is one of the main compounds in turmeric and is being investigated for its application for treating more serious illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, breast cancer and melanoma.

Curcumin has shown to be effective in killing and stopping cancer cell growth under laboratory conditions using rats and mice. Trials are being planned to use curcumin in treatments with patients.

Curcumin is effective in preventing some of the unpleasant side effects of exposure to radiation and this could be of great benefit to patients who are undergoing radiation treatment for their cancers.

There are lots of Internet articles about the medicinal uses of curcumin and turmeric. If you want to read more, you can start with the following links.

Curcumin to Kill and Stop the Growth of Skin Cancer Cells

Curry Spice May Counter Alzheimer’s

Curry Spice Found to Fight Cancer

Curry Spice May Curb Alzheimer’s

Curry Spice Takes Burn Out Of Radiation

Curry spice may fight decline in brain function

Curry Spice May Fight Alzheimer’s

Curcumin

Curcumin and Turmeric

Turmeric: from kitchen cabinet to medicine chest

Turmeric. Traditional medicine

It does seem that turmeric is a medicine as well as a spice. And it is a very versatile medicine at that.