Lamb curry
I decided to take up my culinary experience up a notch. If I usually make delicious difficult-to-prepare food (such as Indonesian food) with the help of some ready made spice mixture, this time I decided to make things from scratch. Or sort of. The menu for today: lamb curry.
Originally I bought lamb shoulder to make some lamb steak. But when I looked at the meat, there were too many tendons and I was afraid that it was going to be a tough one. So I decided to make some lamb curry. I have always wanted to make curry with the Indian spices that Amara gave me once a while ago.
Everything just came from the top of my head, trying to remember what Amara did when she cooked chicken curry for me and my hubby when we came over. Here is what I did.
Ingredients
- about 500 grams lamb shoulder, cut into cubes
- 3 teaspoons of Amara’s Indian spice mix (think it consists of cinnamon, coriander seeds, cardamom, and caraway or cumin, maybe some other spices I can’t identify at the moment);
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground turmeric;
- 1 teaspoon of minced ginger;
- one large onion, sliced;
- 3 whole cloves (if I remembered correctly, Amara said this was left out of the spice mixture because her dad didn’t like it – I am sure she’ll correct me if I’m wrong
); - 2 cloves garlic, crushed;
- 200 gr canned tomatoes;
- 1 cup water;
- 1/2 cup coconut milk.
With little oil, I stir-fried the ‘Amara spice mixture’ and the turmeric, cloves, and turmeric until it was fragrant. Then I added the ginger, onion and garlic, again until fragrant and until the onion was soft. In went the lamb cubes, mixed well to coat all the meat with the spices, seasoned with salt. Once the lamb changed colour completely, I added the crushed canned tomatoes and let it simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes to ensure the lamb was tender, stirring occasionally. Afterwards, I added water, brought it to boil, seasoned with more salt and pepper (to taste, if required), and add the coconut milk, stirring often to ensure the coconut milk doesn’t break. Once it has come to a boil again, it was ready to serve with rice. Selamat makan!
