Saturday 2 January - Chilli Beef Rendang

We were planning on making a Chinese Meal, but then spotted James Martin making this on Saturday Morning TV. Although we all love curry, I suffer a bit with eating lots of onions, so it's rather dropped off the menu recently - this looked like something that we would all enjoy without too many after effects!

The recipe started with a paste of shallots, garlic, lemon grass, ginger and chillies.

This was stirred into beef cubes and it was left to marinate while we went shopping.

After a few hours, some whole spices were fried, before adding the meat.

The liquids were then added, coconut milk, fish sauce, some beef stock, tamarind and palm sugar, and it was all left to simmer for a few hours.

Once the meat was tender, some lime juice was added to finish the curry off.

We served this with a pickled carrot salad, prawn crackers, rice, and some little prawn spring rolls.