Lamb Rogan Josh

“Isn’t that a waste of lamb?” my mum said to me when I told her I’d used the half-leg of lamb I found reduced in Waitrose to make a curry. I didn’t think so but then I love Indian food and lamb is my favourite of all curried meats. I have successfully used leftover meats for curry before but you don’t get the deep, meaty flavour that comes from using raw meat that has been browned and left to cook down with the bones. I suppose I could have used neck fillet or shoulder but that would probably have worked out to be more since the half-leg was reduced to £5.

I first thought about leaving the lamb whole but I really wanted to make sure the flavours penetrated the meat so chopped everything up. And then I cooked it. And cooked it and cooked it. The instructions simply said “cook until tender” but I sort of forgot about it while I busied myself with other things around the house. Which meant that the meat was indeed tender but somewhat stewed. It didn’t affect the flavour but the appearance was rather reminiscent of bad curry-house dishes that have been cooked to death. The texture was different too but just different, not worse. We ate it with a kind-of saag aloo that Stephen made with some new potatoes and some methi rothi that a friend gave us. These were really good but I forgot to note down the brand unfortunately.

Lamb Rogan Josh
From Camellia Panjabi’s “50 Great Curries of India”
Serves Four

700g lamb, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt
2 teaspoons chilli powder
1 teaspoon paprika
100ml yoghurt
250g shallots (I used onions)
Oil
4 cloves
2 black cardamoms
4 green cardamoms
2 bay leaves
1 blade of mace
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground fennel seed
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

Boil the lamb (and any bones) with the garlic and some salt in 2 pints of water for 20 minutes. Remove the meat and set aside, reserve the cooking water.

Fry the onions until lightly browned. Add the cloves, cardamom, bay leaves and the mace and fry for one minute. Add the coriander, fennel, ginger, turmeric, chilli powder and paprika with two tablespoons of water and stir continuously for two minutes.

Add the meat, cook for five minutes. Lower the heat, add the yoghurt and cook for another five minutes.

Add salt and the reserved cooking water (topped up with tap water if necessary to make 800ml). Cook until tender 🙂 Remove the mace and serve.