Thai cooking is full of flavor that comes from complex combinations of herbs and spices. Thai curry paste, which you can buy in the supermarket, makes it easy to get all of that complex flavor without having to buy 20 exotic ingredients. This dish calls for red curry paste, which is usually made from a combination of red chilies, garlic, lemongrass, shrimp paste, galangal, and kaffir limes. The heat level varies widely from brand to brand, so be careful about how much you add to your dish.
Rich coconut milk, peanut butter, brown sugar, and lime juice round out the flavor of this curry. With potatoes, bell peppers, and green beans, it can be a great one-pot meal, but I like to serve it over rice.
Panang Beef Curry with Peanuts
4
10 minutes
6 hours
6 hours, 10 minutes
1 cup coconut milk
¼ cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 to 2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
1 tablespoon fish sauce
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 large potato, peeled and diced
1 ¾ pounds beef chuck roast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and cut into strips
½ pound green beans, cut into 1 ½-inch pieces
1/4 cup chopped roasted and unsalted peanuts
¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
Combine the coconut milk, peanut butter, brown sugar, lime juice, curry paste, fish sauce, and salt in a 4- or 6-quart slow cooker and stir to mix well.
Add the potatoes, beef, bell pepper and green beans and stir to incorporate. Cover and cook on high for 6 hours. Serve hot, garnished with chopped peanuts and basil.
Pro tip: If you want your bell peppers and green beans to remain crisp-tender, don’t add them before cooking. Instead, blanch them in boiling water or steam them briefly in the microwave and then stir them in at the end
