Bloke's Cookbook - Lamb Rogan Josh

It can be hard to find a good curry. There are a great many tandoori or Indian restaurants that really haven't moved with the times - flock wallpaper and 300 different dishes. I'm fortunate that there are half a dozen good Indian restaurants within a few miles but I still enjoy cooking my own. It's cheaper, it's fun and you know what goes in. That's why I've given you a recipe straight from one of my Indian cookbooks.

Remember that the key to this recipe is slow cooking. If you want the best from it you can't rush it. Aim to marinade the meat 24 hours beforehand. Then allow at least 2 hours for cooking. You don't need to stand over the lamb whilst it cooks, so you can go and do other things for at least 1 1/2 hours, but plan your time well.

I've written the recipe with half a leg of lamb in mind. This is a pricey way of doing the recipe, though. You can save yourself an awful lot of money by using mutton or by using shoulder of lamb instead of leg. Shoulder is between half and a third as expensive as leg. Mutton is at least half the price of leg. Both will taste as good but shoulder is much harder to bone and produces scads of fat which needs to be spooned off. There's also cartilage which needs to be removed before serving and sheets of tough fat which must be cut away. As for mutton, you need to make sure you don't cook it too fast or it'll be like leather. Marinading it also improves the texture.

With a half-leg of lamb, this will serve 4-6. If you are doing veg curry side dishes, naan and rice, it will serve at least 8. It makes an excellent centrepiece to a curry evening.

Ingredients:

1/2 leg of lamb;
2 large onions;
1 large pot plain yoghurt;
1 400g tin plum tomatoes;
Tomato puree;
8 cloves garlic;
8 fresh chillies;
1 inch ginger;
Cumin seeds;
Cardomom pods;
Bay leaves;
Large bunch fresh coriander;
Olive oil or ghee;
Juice of 1 lemon.

Equipment:

Large mixing bowl to prepare marinade;
Large crockpot, heavy wok or deep saucepan, preferably with a lid.


Stage 1 - the day before:

Finely chop half the garlic cloves and the ginger.

Using a very sharp knife, joint the meat and cut the lamb into bite-sized cubes. If your joint has a very large amount of fat, discard some of it, but don't trim the fat off the cubes - it will cook off over time.

Do not discard the bone from the joint. This will go into the curry and will cook with it. It will improve the flavour. Don't forget to take it out before you serve.

Place the meat and bone in the mixing bowl. Now add the yoghurt. Add the chopped garlic, chopped ginger, and lemon juice. Mix together thoroughly, cover and put in the fridge overnight.

Note - you can skip the marinade step although I do not recommend it.

Stage 2 - on the day:

Chop the onions, finely chop the garlic, and chop the chillies in to pieces. You don't have to put chillies in at all if you don't like spicy food. If you do, then feel free to bung in as many as you think you'll enjoy. You can leave out the chilli seeds if you want the chilli flavour but less heat. Finally, chop the coriander up.

Fling a good-sized lump of ghee or a hefty dollop of olive oil into your cooking receptacle. Ghee is more authentic although I can't really tell the difference in flavour. Heat the pan until the ghee/oil is hot and then pour in a couple of teaspoons worth of cumin seeds. Fry for 2 minutes. Then add a bay leaf and half a dozen cardomom pods. Fry for 2 more minutes. Put in the chopped garlic and the chillies. Fry for 2 more minutes then add the onion. Stir everything up and make sure nothing burns. Fry for several minutes, at least until the onion goes translucent and soft and preferably until it starts to brown.

Now add the lamb to the pan. Turn the heat down, stir everything in together and cook for ten minutes, stirring regularly and making sure there's no burning. After ten minutes, add the tinned tomatoes (chopped), around half a tomato can's worth of water, and a big squeeze of tomato puree. Stir slowly and keep the heat on low. Stir everything in well for a couple of minutes. Now add almost all the fresh coriander. You will need a bit left over as a garnish so don't use it all.

Stir the coriander in, cover with a lid and cook at the lowest hob setting for around 1 1/2 hours. Stir roughly every half hour. If you used a shoulder of lamb, make sure that you spoon off the excess fat - and there'll be a fair bit of it - before you serve it at the table. If the sauce looks very watery, then take the lid off, turn the heat up for the last 20 minutes and stir regularly to get the excess liquid cooked off.

This is one of the easiest curries I've cooked and one of the best, too. The variety of spices and flavours makes it a winner and it can be tailored to spicy and non-spicy eaters. The slow cooking brings out the best in the lamb or mutton.

I'd normally serve this with basmati rice and naan breads. As a rule, I buy premade naan breads - life's too short and my oven's too crappy to do a good job on making my own. You'll need something to soak up the sauce.

Drink with: Cobra beer.

Ease of cooking and preparation: 3/5 - No special skills are required but the cooking is slow and there's lots to remember.

Mess Factor: 4/5 - A few peelings, lots of tidying up and a large pan to wash up. Pretty good.

Leftover value: 4/5 - The great thing about this curry is that it's better the day after you've cooked it. If you can, cook it a day in advance.