Meat and Greens Makes Three - Nashville: Lamb Curry


Me, Lucas Behnke and Anna Hargreaves. Six months in and no lamb curry in sight.

I lived in South Africa for a year when I was 21. Well much of that year remains a blur in my memory, this recipe has stuck with me and takes me right back to curry pies, curry roti and the black label afternoons of Dewotshof, Pietermaritzburg.

It must have been my second week in country and I was walking downtown with Lucas Behnke, a fellow NorCal bud, exploring the sights and getting a feel for Maritzburg, our home away from home in the foothills of the Drakensburg. Being from Northern California, or maybe just being who we were, we were all about the food and Maritzburg was great for food because it had a huge Indian population, British South Africans (who doesn't like a fried tomato now and again), Boer boerwars and African spices and veg.

Walking along the downtown we followed our noses to the spice shop and there was this beautiful (BEAUTIFUL) Indian woman with about four children crawling in and about her and jars and jars of spices, packages of spices - the sorts of things I had never seen before and made me drool. We got into a conversation and ended up buying this dank musty curry powder that was just the darkest red and spicy spicy spicy. Not only that, the woman gave us a recipe that she said was a can't miss. We bought some other powders of varying heat and took them home, ready to cook.

That night we invited all of our other study abroaders to my abode and made a veg curry and a meat curry. It must have taken us five hours to get the curries ready and it was summer there at this point and wicked hot outside. When everyone showed up the dorm was well over a hundred degrees, there were no fans and the beer was warm. The cooks were covered in curry oil and scorched from an afternoon of cooking and drinking and then we tried the curry. Still, to this day, I haven't had anything as hot as that curry. I think we(by that I mean I) added probably added four or five ounces of this curry powder to what we were making and it just exploded in your mouth, coated your insides and either made you lay down, take a dump or run around in circles trying to scream while saliva ran down your face because your mouth was so hot you couldn't close it. But as soon as your mouth did calm down and you could close it, and you learned to pick at the curry and soak it in some bread, the taste was delish and I've been making it ever since.

1-2 lbs stewing lamb, bone in and cut into eating sized pieces
One gigantic yellow onion
Three yukon potatoes
Hot peppers to taste (not jalepenos or serranos)
Ginger piece - as long and wide as two fingers
Three cloves garlic
Two shallots
Two regular cans whole tomatoes
Curry powder - preferably red, but yellow will do
Curry spices such as cardomon, fennel seed, cumin, peppercorns
Fat (ghee, canola oil - or today I used bacon fat and left over chicken fat)

Heat a cast iron dutch oven over medium heat. Add in the fat so there is about 1/4 inch in the bottom of the pan. Generously cover the lamb with curry powder, rub-in, and let sit for five minutes. When the oven is heated, gently lay the lamb down and cook on each side until crusty.

While the lamb is cooking, cut the onion into quarter inch pieces, smash and cut garlic, peel shallots (leave whole), grate ginger, coarsely chop the peppers (you can also leave them whole to more easily pull them out later), and chop potato into one inch cubes

Ginger grater, curry powder and the mess of curry

Aromatics cooking.

When crusty, remove the lamb to another pan. Lower heat to medium low and in the hot oil, add curry spices whole and let cook for thirty seconds. Add all the chopped materials and cook until the potatoes are just a little soft. Add back in the lamb, pour the tomatoes over the top, lower the heat to low and let cook for 3-4 hours.