Serves 4 as a main dish
This is a dry, dark, aromatic Punjabi dish, made extra hearty with the potato. Although it’s traditionally a dry, meaty dish, you can add more Base Curry Sauce if you like your curries with more sauce or more yoghurt if you like them a bit creamier.
What you need…
• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 5cm chunks (you need about 12 pieces)
• 4 Tablespoons ghee
• 5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 5 chillies, roughly chopped, depending how hot you’d like your curry (optional)
• 1 teaspoon ginger paste
• 800g lamb mince
• 200ml Base Curry Sauce
• 2 Tablespoons tomato ketchup
• 0.5 onion roughly chopped
• small handful fresh coriander (chop up the stems to add to the curry and set aside the leaves for garnish)
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 Tablespoon yoghurt
• salt, to taste
Spice Mix 1
• 2 cloves
• 1 cardamom, cracked but not crushed
• 1 cinnamon stick (about 10cm long)
Spice Mix 2
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• 0.5 teaspoon cumin powder
• 0.5 teaspoon coriander powder
How to make it…
1. Boil the potatoes and, when cooked, cover in cold water and set aside.
2. Heat the ghee to a high heat. Add the Spice Mix 1 to the pan and fry for 15 seconds. They should sizzle immediately. You can test the ghee is hot enough by adding one cardamom.
3. Add the garlic and the (optional) chillies, turn down the heat and cook for 2 minutes. You may have to remove the pan from the heat initially to stop it burning. (If it burns then throw it away and start again.)
4. Add the ginger paste and fry for 1 minute.
5. Add the mince, coat it well with the mixture and fry until all the dark red colour of the mince has turned brown. Make sure you break down all the chunks of mince. This will take about 3–4 minutes.
6. Add the Base Curry Sauce and Spice Mix 2, stir well and cover the pan. Cook (covered) for 20 minutes on a medium heat, stirring occasionally.
7. Add the tomato ketchup, coriander stems and garam masala and onion, mix well and simmer gently (uncovered) for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
8. Add the potato, yoghurt and salt, mix well and cook until everything is heated through. This should take about 2 minutes.
9. Serve, garnished with the coriander leaves.
If you don’t want whole spices in your curry you can skip stage 2 and add an extra teaspoon of garam masala in stage 7 instead. This recipe will create a dryish dish but if you like more sauce with your potatoes simply add more Base Curry Sauce.
If you like this you should try our…
Why couldn’t the mince go out to play with his friends? … because he was grounded.
Mughlai Malai Kofta • Lamb Madras • Lamb Vindaloo • Medium Chicken Curry • Chicken Madras • Chicken Vindaloo • Chicken Bhoona