Recipe: Spicy Beef and Aubergine Rajma

Back in the days where I used to eat a more typically SAD diet, one of my favourite curries was a Rajma – a spicy, fragrant vegetarian dish made with kidney beans as the main ingredient. Even though beans are out of the question on the Paleo diet, I wanted to try and recreate the delicious, heady flavours of the Rajma I used to enjoy so often – and make it healthy too. After perfecting the spice blend, I opted to go for Beef as the protein of choice in this dish, as it adds much greater depth of flavour than the lifeless kidney beans ever did. I also included aubergine, as the texture somewhat mimics that of the beans. I think I've finally nailed the beanless Rajma – but I’ll let you be the judge of that!

Recipe: Spicy Beef and Aubergine Rajma

Author: Suz Crawt

Recipe type: Dinner

Cuisine: Indian

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Ingredients

• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp ghee / coconut oil
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled
• 5cm piece of ginger, peeled
• 4 red chilli peppers, deseeded and chopped
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp turmeric
• Pinch of salt
• 1 x 400g chopped tomatoes
• 500g diced beef
• 2 medium aubergines, diced
• A good handful fresh coriander, chopped

Instructions

In a large cooking pot, toast the coriander and cumin seeds very lightly for roughly 2 minutes. Grind to a powder, then set aside.
Raise the heat of the pot to medium, and add the ghee / coconut oil. Fry the onions for around 5 minutes, until softened.
Meanwhile, in a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic cloves with the ginger and chilli to make a paste. Add a touch of olive oil if needed. Add this to the onion, and sauté for a further couple of minutes, before adding in the toasted cumin and coriander, along with the garam masala, turmeric and salt. After a minute, pour in the chopped tomatoes and around 200ml hot water. Stir well. Add the diced beef, then cover and leave to cook on a medium heat for around 20 minutes.
Remove the cover, stir, then add the diced aubergine. Return the lid to the pot and cook for another 15 minutes, before serving garnished with the fresh coriander.