This recipe is adapted from Rick Stein’s “Food Heroes” book and was given to him by Mumrez Khan when he visited Bradford’s Karachi Restaurant when filming his TV series of the same name. If you’ve been disappointed with home-cooked curries in the past, then give this one a try - the results are superb. I love the way the green chillies are added - they’re blitzed at the end with a little water and added to the curry, giving a delicious, fresh flavour.
Ingredients
- 150g ghee
- 550g onions, chopped (about 3 large onions)
- 65g garlic, peeled (about 1 bulb/12-15 cloves)
- 50g root ginger, peeled and chopped roughly (about the size of a golf ball)
- 400g canned tomatoes
- 200ml water
- 900g boneless lamb (leg or shoulder), cut into large cubes
- 1 tbsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp each of the following: turmeric, red chilli powder, sweet paprika, ground coriander, ground cumin
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 200g baby spinach
- 2-4 medium-sized green chillies, stalks removed
- 2 handfuls fresh coriander leaves, chopped
Method
- Heat the ghee in a large cast-iron casserole. Cook the onions gently for about 20 minutes until soft and light brown in colour. Take the casserole off the heat.
- Blitz the garlic, root ginger, tomatoes and water in a blender until smooth. Remove the browned onions using a slotted spoon and add to the blender. Blend again until very smooth.
- Return the mixture to the oil in the casserole and add the lamb and salt. Simmer gently for 30 minutes. The sauce will now be well-reduced.
- Stir through the ground spices and cook for a further 1½-2 hours. Add a little water every now and then if the sauce starts to stick.
- Check the lamb is cooked to your satisfaction. At this point, you can spoon off the fat which has risen to the top of the sauce (see below). Stir through the spinach puree and the rest of the spinach leaves. Add the green chilli puree and simmer and heat through for another 10 minutes.
- Just before the lamb is finished cooking, make the spinach puree. Put 150g of the spinach leaves in a large saucepan along with a splash of water. Place a lid on the saucepan and cook for about 2 minutes or until the spinach has wilted down. Transfer the spinach to a liquidizer along with another splash of water and blend until smooth. Add to the curry.
- Make the chilli pureé. Blend the green chillies with some water until smooth and add to the curry.
- Stir through the garam masala and fresh coriander. Taste for seasoning, adding plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Serve with rice and naan bread with some cooling yoghurt on the side, if you wish.
Notes
- The original recipe specifies heart-stopping quantities of ghee, an Indian clarified butter. I’ve experimented with this and have discovered you can easily cut down from 250g to 150g, with no loss of flavour. You also have the option of skimming off the ghee at the end of cooking. The best way to achieve this is to leave the pot to stand at a slight angle for 15 minutes. That way, the ghee will collect at one side of the pot where it will be easy to skim off.
- The addition of pureéd spinach may seem bonkers, but it tastes really good and also lightens the dish somewhat. You could add the spinach directly to the curry without pureéing but you lose out on the excellent colour it gives the dish.
- A note on cooking times: Rick’s recipe specifies 1½ hours total cooking time. I’ve found this does not give enough time to make the meat very tender, which is the way I like it. I cook this gently for 2-2½ hours which gives me the result I want. Next time I make this curry, I’m going to cook it in the oven - 160°C for 2½ hours should do it.
- Finally, important for all curries (indeed, all stews and braises), this will taste immeasurably better on the second day after being left to stand overnight. This softens the flavour of the garlic, onion and spices and allows the curry to mellow. Do give this a try if you can - leave to stand overnight then prepare the spinach puree when you’re reheating the curry.
Variations
- Add a 400g tin of cooked chickpeas to bulk this recipe out and give it some extra nutrition.
- Adding a tablespoon of dried fenugreek leaves gives this curry an extra dimension.
- Omit the spinach leaves and use this as a “base” sauce, adding extra ingredients to make your favourite restaurant-style curry: lemon juice will give you a “Madras”. Adding lots of dried chillies, a little red wine vinegar and some cubes of cooked potato will produce a “Vindaloo”. Add a portion of tarka dal, sugar, lemon juice and some cubed pineapple to give you a “Dhansak”. And so on…
Serves 6.
Seekh kebabs are a classic on Indian restaurant menus and typically cooked in the tandoor oven. “Seekh” means skewer, but the truth is you don’t really need skewers for this; just form the meat into long sausage shapes before cooking. You can also form the meat into patties, which will turn them into a “shami” kebab. My version uses great flavourings such as fenugreek, fresh mint and garam masala.
The trick to achieving a good seekh kebab is to finely mince the lamb. Minced lamb from the butcher or supermarket is typically too coarse. Use a food processor to pulse the lamb giving a finer texture. By doing this you won’t need any binding ingredients such as egg or flour. Don’t go crazy with the food processor, you don’t want purée!
Serve with naan bread, salad and raita.
(Note: you could also add a small pinch of red food colouring, as the restaurants do, but you really don’t need it.)
Ingredients
- 450g minced lamb (I used minced lamb shoulder)
- thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated
- 2 cloves garlic, grated
- 2 green chili peppers, very finely chopped
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp dried fenugreek leaves
- 1 tbsp tomato pureé
- 1 tsp salt
- handful fresh mint
- handful fresh coriander
- juice of ½ lemon
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
- Run the lamb mince through your food processor to achieve a finer texture, as described above. Place in a mixing bowl.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well before shaping, use metal skewers if you have them.
- I like to use a grill pan to cook this in the oven. This means a lot of the fat can cook out of the meat, but it will still be succulent. Place on the grill pan and cook for 15 minutes.
Serves 4 as a starter, 2 for a main course.
This recipe produces meltingly tender meat and a rich, deeply-flavoured sauce. This recipe also scales easily, so adjust the amounts to fit the number of diners. I like to use a cast-iron casserole for this, searing the meat and braising in the same pot. It allows me to de-glaze the casserole with red wine and take advantage of the delicious brownings left by the meat. Serve with pommes dauphinoise and minted peas.
Ingredients
- 2 lamb shanks
- 2 small onions, chopped
- 2 sticks celery, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced
- sprig fresh rosemary, finely chopped (about 2 tsp)
- 250ml red wine
- 100ml water
- 1 tbsp tomato pureé
- salt & pepper
Method
- Season the lamb shanks with some salt and pepper, then dust with plain flour. Heat some olive oil in a cast-iron casserole and fry the shanks over a high heat until browned on all sides. Remove the shanks and set aside.
- Pour off some of the oil if it seems excessive. Now the fry the onions, celery, garlic and rosemary until they colour and start to “catch” at the edges. Pour in the wine and de-glaze the casserole, scraping at the meat brownings. Bring the wine to the boil and add the water and tomato pureé. Mix well and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Return the lamb shanks to the casserole along with any juices that have collected from the meat. Spoon over some of the sauce and place in the centre of the oven. Cook for 3 hours until tender.
Serves 2.
I’ll be honest here. Sunday roasts kinda scare me. I normally feel very much in control in the kitchen but there’s something about timing roast dinners (whether it’s chicken, beef or lamb) I find a little daunting. In reality though, it’s about as simple as cooking gets. My downfall is “over-researching”; reading lots of different recipes and stressing that they all differ so much. But, I’ve now settled on this fool-proof method for slow-roasting a leg or shoulder of lamb.
I’ve used the cooking temperatures suggested by Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall in his excellent “River Cottage Meat Book” - a “half-hour sizzle” at a high temperature, followed by 4½ hours of slow roasting at a low temperature. This method produces a truly delicious joint, soft enough to be eaten with a spoon! As a bonus, you’re also rewarded by a deliciously rich broth.
Ingredients
- 1 shoulder(or leg) of lamb
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 sprigs rosemary
- salt & pepper
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 stick celery, chopped
- 1 glass white wine
- 250ml water
Method
- Peel 2 cloves of garlic cut each clove into 4 pieces. Chop one of the rosemary sprigs into 8 piece. Make small incisions in the lamb and stud with the garlic and rosemary. Season the lamb on all sides with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Remove the leaves from the other sprig of rosemary and grind in a mortar and pestle, along with the last clove of garlic and some rock salt. Add 2 tbsp olive oil and mix. Smear the flavoured oil over the lamb joint. Place in a deep roasting dish and roast the joint for 30 minutes at 220°C.
- Take the tray out of the oven and set the lamb aside on a plate or board. Pour off some oil from the roasting tray if it seems excessive.
- Add the chopped vegetables to the roasting tray along with the wine and water. Place the lamb on top of the vegetables and cover loosely with foil. Reduce the oven temperature to 140°C and cook for another 4½ hours. You could get away with 3½ hours, but then it wouldn’t be “Five Hour Lamb”, would it?
- After 5 hours cooking, your lamb will be meltingly tender and delicious. You can put that carving knife away, you won’t need it. I rarely bother with thickening the amazing broth left in the roasting dish. But I do like to mash the vegetables into the broth, reduce slightly and strain. The flavour is absolutely amazing.
Serves 6.
Variations
- Jamie-stylee - Jamie Oliver’s second book “The Return of The Naked Chef” includes a recipe entitled, I kid you not, “braised five hour lamb with wine, veg and all that“. Sod grammar, eh? It sounds great though, to be honest. Lamb and veg are all cooked together until the meat is melting. I just can’t get over the fact that the recipe includes an entire bottle of wine. I just can’t…
- Rick-stylee - I remember seeing an episode of Rick Stein’s excellent series, “Mediterranean Escapes”. In this episode, an elderly Majorcan lady braises joints of lamb and vegetables in beer. San Miguel, no less. It looked fantastic and the Rick claims the resulting broth (or caldo) is delicious. I will definitely get around to this one at some stage.
- Leftovers - in the unlikely event of having leftovers, I’d recommend a classic shepherd’s pie.
