Warming lamb curry
- Published: 31 Dec 13
- Updated: 18 Mar 24
In winter, colds are lurking on street corners like muggers, and they should be seen off with a hot lamb curry. Cinnamon, fennel, nutmeg and chilli spice this lamb fillet beautifully.
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Serves 6
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Hands-on time 45 min, simmering time 1 hour 15 min
Ingredients
- 3 lamb neck fillets, trimmed and sliced diagonally into 1cm thick pieces (trimmed weight 850g)
- 50g butter or ghee
- 1 red onion, sliced
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1-2 green bird’s eye chillies, split lengthways, to taste
- 330ml carton coconut water
- Juice of ½ small lemon
- Fresh coriander leaves to garnish
For the curry paste:
- 2 tsp fennel seeds
- ½ nutmeg, freshly grated
- 10 peppercorns
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 6 clove
- 1 heaped tsp cayenne pepper
- ½-1 heaped tsp mild chilli powder to taste
- 1½ star anise
- 1 red onion, finely diced
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- 4 fat garlic cloves, roughly chopped
Method
- To make the curry paste, grind all the ingredients, except the onion, tomato purée and garlic, in a pestle and mortar to a powder. Transfer to a food processor with the remaining ingredients and whizz to a paste.
- Put the lamb in a bowl and coat with the curry paste. Set aside. Heat the butter/ghee in a flameproof casserole with a lid, then fry the onion, bay, cinnamon and chillies over a low-medium heat for 10-12 minutes until deep golden.
- Turn up the heat, then fry the lamb, stirring often, until the paste starts to catch on the bottom of the pan.
- Add the coconut water and enough cold water to just cover the meat. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Remove the lid and gently simmer for 45 minutes or until the meat is tender and the sauce reduced. Stir in the lemon juice and simmer for 2 minutes. Scatter with the coriander leaves, then serve with rice, poppadoms and raita, if you like.
- Recipe from January 2014 Issue
Nutrition
- Calories
- 386kcals
- Fat
- 27.5g (13.6g saturated)
- Protein
- 29.2g
- Carbohydrates
- 6.8g (5.2g sugars)
- Fibre
- 0.9g
- Salt
- 0.6g
delicious. tips
Deseed or omit the chillies for a milder curry.
Make the curry up to a day ahead, cover and chill. Or, freeze the finished curry for up to 3 months. Defrost thoroughly before reheating.
Ghee is a kind of clarified butter. Find it in Asian grocers or in the world food aisle at supermarkets. Coconut water is what you hear splashing when you shake a fresh coconut – it’s not coconut milk, which is made from the grated flesh.
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