Beef Vindaloo

For the marinade: In a mortar we added 10 dried red Kashmiri chillies, 4 chopped garlic cloves and 3 tbsp of cider vinegar.

1 tsp of honey, 1 tbsp of tamarind paste and about 1 inch of fresh ginger.

Using the pestle we blended it well into a paste. We cut 700g casserole beef into cubes, then massaged well with the paste. Covered in the marinade for 1-2 hours.

In a pestle and mortar we ground together 1 tsp black and pink peppercorns, 3 cloves and 1 tsp coriander seeds. 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp mustard seeds and 1 tsp turmeric.

We ground the spices well and finely chopped 500g onions and counted out about 12 fresh curry leaves.

In a frying pan we poured 1-2 tsp oil and gently fried the spices for a few minutes to release their oils and flavours. We poured in 1 tbsp more oil and added the curry leaves and 1 star anise and the onions.

We cooked it until the onions were soft then stirred in the beef and garlic ginger paste.

We then added in half a teaspoon of salt and 1 tbsp of honey.

We added 3 tbsp of water and let it come to a sizzle. We cooked the vindaloo for at least 1 hour. Every now and again, we added a splash of water, adding up to 250ml until the meat was tender and the sauce reduced. We then played "Spot the Star Anise" so we could remove and not choke on it! Babs had some lovely fragrant pink rice which we though just set off the whole dish.