Bunny chow

by Oliver Denton
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2
1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

Bunny chow

  • 850g of braising beef, cut into chunks
  • 1 knob of ginger, thumb-sized, finely diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely diced
  • 4 shallots, finely diced (you can use another kind of onion if needed)
  • 1 tbsp of madras curry powder
  • 1 tbsp of chilli flakes, cayenne
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 star anise
  • 4 cloves
  • 300g of potatoes, cut into cubes
  • 200g of onion squash, cut into cubes
  • 3 red chillies
  • 3 green chillies
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 400ml of coconut milk
  • 125g of button mushrooms
  • 2 tbsp of lime juice
  • 1 tsp soft brown sugar
  • 2 loaves of bread, unsliced
  • 2 tbsp of nut oil

Method

1
Add the oil to a big pot or saucepan and heat at 60% heat until it starts gently bubbling (one minute). Add the shallots, ginger and garlic and fry for four to five minutes
2
Add all of the spices to the pot and stir in with shallots. Fry for one minute, and enjoy as the herbs and spices fill your kitchen with amazing smells! It may seem like all of the powders are drying out the pan a little bit, but don’t worry – the moisture from the beef and other ingredients will soon add plenty of liquid to the pan
3
Add all of the beef and coat in spices by stirring it around. The moist beef should quickly mop up all of the spice, and they’ll have a nice covering. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes until you’re ready for the next phase
4
Now the meat is cooking in the pan, it’s time to add the extras. Get the potato, squash, chilis, salt and coconut milk into the pan and start stirring. There should just be enough coconut milk to cover all of the other ingredients, if not then don’t be shy about adding a little more (although generally the tins of coconut milk come in 400ml, so you might be better reducing the amount of the ingredients slightly instead…up to you!)
5
Now bring the curry (which is basically fully prepared now) to the boil and then turn the heat down to 20% and simmer (keep it bubbling but gently) for 25 minutes, stirring from time to time so that you don’t ruin your pan
6
After 25 minutes, add the mushrooms to the pan and simmer for another 20 minutes, or until the curry has thickened up to the point where you’re confident it’s not going to soak straight through your loaf and dribble onto the carpet
7
So if you’re confident that your curry is ready for its soft, warm housing, add the lime juice and sugar and stir them through. This will give a tiny extra tang to the already deep curry flavour
8
To make the housing for the curry, you need a full loaf of bread. You can pick any type, although my man on ‘the inside’ says that it doesn’t need to be fancy. Just make sure you don’t buy it pre-sliced
9
Cut the end off (around 4cm from one end) and then rip (or cut) out the middle. Make sure you don’t rip out too much though! You need a little fluff in there to soak up the curry juices and to maintain the integrity of the curry house. Integrity is everything to a curry house
10
Spoon the curry directly into the hollowed out loaf, and then put the top (or lid) back on and serve immediately!
11
The official way of eating a Bunny Chow is to rip pieces of the bread off the housing and grab the curry chunks inside – making mini curry sandwiches. Go ahead, Dave will be proud of you