'Robust' Lamb Curry

Some curries are a bit 'woosy'. This isn't.

That said it's very 'authentic' and I've served it to Asian friends with no complaints.

This is a version for dehydrating, the normal version is the same but with bigger chucks of meat, the smaller chunks dehydrate / rehydrate more quickly

Ingredients

• 2 lbs (800 gm) of trimmed lamb cut into small chunks (about 1.5 cm cubed). You can either buy it ready-cubed or as 'steaks' or a joint and trim it yourself - it's much cheaper this way
• 40 green finger chillies, a bulb of garlic, peeled, a 4" piece of garlic, peeled and chopped. use a food-processor or a mouli grater and chop all these very finely.
• 2 large onions finely chopped.
• Spices - see below
• The juice of one lemon
• Sunflower / peanut oil

Method

Take a large pan with a lid and a heavy base. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil and add your whole spices.

• 2 tsp of cumin seeds
• 1 tsp of fennel seeds
• 10-12 cardamon pods, you can take the seeds out of the pods if you prefer.
• 7-8 cloves
• 1 tsp of yellow mustard seeds

Fry the whole spices gently for 30 seconds add one chopped onion. Fry until that onion is browning, then add the second onion. Fry until the second onion is brown (the first onion bits will be very brown / black, that's fine)

Add your meat and mix it well until it is lightly browned. Add the chilli etc mix and fry until it is soft (about 5 minutes). Reduce the heat / set that pan aside while you prepare the ground spices.

Take a separate pan, a frying pan is ideal.

Heat 4 tablespoons of oil and add:

• 2 tablespoon of cumin powder
• 3 tablespoons of coriander powder
• 2 teaspoons of turmeric
• 2 teaspoons of chilli powder (cayenne)
• 2 teaspoons of coarsely-ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon of asafoteadia (hing)

Mix the oil and spices and fry gently, add the juice of a lemon and allow it to absorb. Add a splash of water and stir, continue to fry and add water a bit at a time until the oil comes out of the spices. (I use a pint glass ready-filled with water, you'll probably need 1/4 pint+ and 5 minutes of frying to get the right result)

Add the spice sauce to the meat etc in the main pan and return to the heat. Mix well and fry gently for about 5 minutes until the meat is well-seasoned. Add enough water to thicken the mixture (about 1/4 pint) and place in the oven, with the lid on, on a low heat for an hour.

After an hour check it and add more water if necessary.

Cook for a further 1-1.5 hours until the meat is tender, the sauce is thick and the flavour is 'rounded'.

If serving at home you'll need a couple of vegetable side dishes (see below) plus rice or chapattis

To dehydrate dry in your dehydrator until it completely dry, you may need to break up any lumps / pieces of meat to unsure all moisture is expelled.

This recipe freezes well and can be defrosted / reheated in the microwave

This dehyrates / rehydrates well but you'll need to rehydrate the rice separately as it takes slightly longer