1. Heat your potjie (or you could use a campoven if you don’t have a potjie) over coals and add the beef, coconut milk, cinnamon and star anise. Then fill the empty tin with water and add this in too.
2. Mix this around to make sure none of your meat is stuck to the bottom of the pot and then cover with the lid.
3. Allow the meat to cook in the coconut milk for an hour or two, checking every now and then to make sure the potjie isn’t too hot. The milk should be lightly simmering, not hard-boiling.
4. Once the meat becomes tender and soft under the edge of a spoon, remove the cinnamon and star anise and add your curry paste stirring it through the milk until it is dissolved.
5. Next add your potatoes that have been either halved or quartered so they are similar sizes to the cubes of meat.
6. Cover and cook until the potatoes are soft, the meat is tender and the sauce is nice and thick.
Cooking the curry this way may seem unnatural to a lot of us, but it gives a rich well-rounded flavour and really jazzes up the old jar of store bought curry paste.
I served this with some steamed rice, hiding from the rain in the camper as we drank a nice red from tumblers and played cards.
