Ingredients
Oil 
800g lamb neck or beef chuck steak 
1 onion 
400ml coconut milk 
500ml chicken stock 
3 cardamom pods 
5 cloves 
1 stick of cinnamon 
1 black cardamom pod (optional) 
1 star anise 
1 bay leaf
400g salad potatoes 
1 ½ tbsp fish sauce 
1 tbsp tamarind paste 
1 tbsp brown sugar 
1 lime 

Curry paste: 
5 dried red chillies 
30g unsalted peanuts
1 stick of cinnamon 
5 cloves 
4 cardamom pods 
1 tbsp coriander seeds 
1 tsp cumin seeds 
½ tsp white peppercorns 

2 sheaths of mace (optional)

½ tsp turmeric 
2 lime leaves 

1 tbsp oil
2 shallots, roughly chopped
3 sticks of lemongrass, finely chopped (or 3 tbsp paste) 
5 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 tbsp galangal, roughly chopped (or paste)
½ tsp shrimp paste 
½ tsp salt
½ nutmeg, grated

Method
Start by putting the oven on 160c.

Start with your paste.

Soak your dried chillies in boiling water.

You now need to roast your peanuts and in a dry pan until golden. Put into the food processor. Into your dry pan put the cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorn and mace, toast on a medium heat, constantly turning and shaking the pan, roast the spices until you can smell the fragrance, this should take around 3 minutes. In a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle grind your spices along with the turmeric, lime leaves and salt to a powder. Put to one side.

To make the paste, take the chillies, shallots, lemongrass, garlic and galangal and gently cook on a low heat in 1 tbsp oil. You want to gently cook for 10 minutes until softish. Add 1 tbsp of water and continue to cook until completely soft.  Once totally soft puree in a food processor. Add your peanuts and spice mix and continue to blitz until your paste is totally smooth.

Brown your meat in an ovenproof dish in batches adding another tbsp of oil as you add batches if needed, putting the cooked meat to one side as you finish each batch.  Remove from the pan, add another 1 tbsp oil and fry your onion until soft and translucent 3-5 minutes. Add the paste to the pan and stir and cook for a minute or so until fragrant. Add the meat back to the pan and stir thoroughly to coat everything.  Add the coconut milk and stir through, then add the stock and the spices and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, turn off the heat and put into the oven for 1 hour covered.  

After an hour put in your potatoes and cook for a further 45 minutes. 

Check that the meat and potatoes are tender.  Add the tamarind paste, brown sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice.  The fish sauce will be the salty seasoning so add more if needed.  This should taste balanced so not too sweet or too salty - if it does just add a little more fish sauce or palm sugar until you are happy with the flavour.