My First Indian/Pakistani Recipe (SO Easy and SO Yummy!)

It only took me 17 years of married life, but I finally stepped out of my fears and tried my first Indian/Pakistani recipe.

This was SO yummy and SO easy! If you’ve ever had an Indian meal in a restaurant and thought (like me), “I wish I could cook something this good!”, then this is the recipe for you:

PAKISTANI “OLD CLOTHES” BEEF CURRY (NIHARI) IN THE SLOW COOKER
(From The Indian Slow Cooker; with my personal notes in parentheses at the end)

2 medium yellow onions, peeled, cut in half, sliced (I used only 1 onion b/c we don’t usually like onions)
2 lbs of beef brisket, trimmed of fat (All I could find was a beef roast which didn’t have a lot of fat and worked fine)
1 – 2 inch piece fresh ginger root, peeled and cut into chunks (yum!)
10 cloves garlic, peeled
1 heaping tsp ground (powdered) ginger
4 green or white cardamom pods (I couldn’t find pods in Montana and used the equivalent dried)
3 bay leaves (I removed before serving)
1 – 4 inch cinnamon stick (Not just for hot cocoa! 🙂 I removed before serving)
1 Tbsp garam masala (Didn’t even know what that was; had to call Samara)
2 Tbsp ground fennel (Couldn’t find ground / had to grind it myself)
1 Tbsp red chile powder
2 pinches ground nutmeg
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp black salt
1/2 cup canola oil

• Place the onions in a 4 or 5 quart slow cooker and set the meat on top.
• In a food processor or mortar and pestle, grind the ginger and garlic to a paste, and add it to the slow cooker.
• Add the remaining ingredients and drizzle the oil over everything; no need to mix!
• Cook on LOW for 9 hours, until the meat falls apart. (We stirred it a few times throughout the cooking process.)
• Serve with naan (did you know you can get naan at Walmart? Fun!) or over basmati rice (we just used white rice; not super healthy, I know, but we were stretching the kiddos to eat curry so we went with it).