Weekend Man Food - Slow Cooked Lamb Curry

Or how to avoid curry withdrawal when in a foreign country...

Easily as good as restaurant offerings.

Copenhagen is a wonderful city to live in. However, as a Brit, one of the major downsides is the lack of a decent curry house. They do exist. Alas, they are both eye wateringly expensive and down spiced for the Danish palate to such an extent that you're left with nothing but a bland stew.

With withdrawal symptoms really starting to bite, and in keeping with first principles here at New Utility, I decided to make my own from scratch. One pot dishes are great for the autumn / winter. It is not as hard as you might think and is well worth the results.

Best made in the morning, left to slow cook for hours on the stove the lamb will be lovely and tender. Decent lamb is a bit of a bugger to get hold of in Denmark, so feel free to substitute for pork. Easier to find in the UK, any good butcher should be able to furnish you with a leg.

Ingredients:-

1. 4 onions, sliced
2. 2 red peppers, sliced 
3. 4 garlic cloves, crushed
4. 5 or 6 chillies, diced 
5. small chunk, fresh ginger, finely chopped 
6. 1 kg of lamb, roughly chopped (or same of pork chuck steak) 
7. 3 tsp ground cumin seeds 
8. 2 tsp coriander seeds
9. 1 tsp fenugreek seeds (for pork use fennel instead)
10. 1 tsp black pepper corns
11. 1 cinnamon stick 
12. 1 tsp ground turmeric 
13. ½ tsp cayenne pepper 
14. 1 tsp paprika 
15. 1 tsp garam masala 
16. 2 handfuls fresh coriander, chopped 
17. 1-2 x 400g/14¼oz cans tomatoes 
18. 550ml/1 pint chicken stock 
19. salt, to taste
20. Butter & rapeseed oil for frying

Ingredients marshalled you are now ready for the final push.

Procedure:

1. First assemble everything you'll need, chop all the vegetables and meat. Measure out your spices. Get your stock heated up and the tinned tomatoes to hand.
2. Toast all the spice seeds in a dry frying pan until they start to give of an aroma. Decant in to a mortar & pestle (or grinder) and work over until you have a course powder. Mix in the ready-ground spices and set aside.
3. Meanwhile fry off the onion, garlic, peppers, chillies and ginger in a bit of butter & oil until soft and golden, but not brown.  (Leave the chilli seeds in if you like your curry hotter.)
4. Add all the spices and fry for one more minute. Remove from pan.
5. Add the lamb to the pan and fry for about five minutes until brown all over.
6. Meanwhile, blend the fried vegetables & spices in a food processor to form a paste.
7. Add and stir in the blended paste and all remaining ingredients to the pan with the lamb.
8. Bring to the boil, before turning the heat down to a simmer, to cook for 3-4 hours (or until the sauce has thickened up enough to stick to the tender meat.) 
9. Sprinkle the fresh coriander over the top & serve with rice or sag aloo and naan bread.
10. Wash down with liberal amounts of IPA!

A word on spices:

It's worth seeking all of them out to get that authentic curry taste. If your supermarket is missing a few try your local Indian or Middle Eastern deli.

The Copenhagen types amongst you can visit ASA Trading at Torvhallerne - run by affable Englishman, Julian Amery, there are few spices he doesn't have.