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Peas keema – keema mattar

Since I made that rice pudding, Indian food, and especially the Indian food I used to eat at friends’ houses when I was a kid, has been much on my mind. Here in the UK, the cuisine of India has embedded itself into the national consciousness – the Victorians were currying things from their new empire with glee, thrilled to discover a way to disguise the flavour of last week’s mutton; surveys done nowadays have demonstrated that the nation’s favourite dish is a Chicken Tikka Masala (something you’d never find in India – it’s a dish that’s evolved over here all on its own); my parents’ fridge was never innocent of at least one jar of Sharwood’s or Patak’s chutney in the 80s. I remember with great pleasure visits to my schoolfriend Gayatri’s house, where her Mum, an outstandingly good home cook, would make us saucepans full of sweet, milky masala tea, sneak us sticky, sugary halva while we played in the garden, and serve up about five different curries with rice when it came to mealtime, all different and all wonderful.

Peas keema was a regular feature on the lunch table. It’s delicious – make plenty, because it freezes very successfully. I’ve made a curry paste which serves (with the addition of different spices) as the base for both this and the Bombay potato recipe I’ll post on Monday, so hold out until then before you make this, or reduce the ingredients of the wet paste by half if you plan on cooking it over the weekend.

To serve four, you’ll need:

1 bulb garlic, peeled
10 spring onions
1 fat piece of ginger, about 5cm long
4 green chillies (I used Thai bird’s eye chillies – adjust amount and variety according to your taste – this amount is pretty spicy)
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
750g minced lamb
300g frozen petits pois
300ml stock
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 large handful fresh coriander (about 20g, if you’re measuring)
Salt
Juice of 1-2 lemons
Flavourless oil or ghee to fry

Begin by reducing the white parts of the spring onions (reserving the green), the ginger, the chillies and the garlic to a paste in the food processor. Reserve half of this mixture to form the base for the Bombay potatoes, which go very well with this dish.

Crush the cumin and coriander finely with a mortar and pestle, and stir them into the half of the paste you are using for this recipe with a generous pinch (use all the fingers of one hand for this) of salt.

Heat some oil over a medium flame and fry the paste for a couple of minutes until it is giving up its fragrance. I like to use a wok with a lid or a large Le Creuset casserole dish for this dish, which allows you plenty of room to work in. Add the minced lamb and fry, stirring continuously, until it is browned evenly (about 5 minutes). Add the stock, turn the heat down to a very low simmer, and put a lid on. Leave to simmer for 30 minutes while you chop the green parts of the onions into pea-sized pieces and mince the coriander.

At the end of the 30 minutes, taste for salt and add more if you need it (you probably will – this dish can take quite a lot of salt). Stir in the garam masala, the peas and the chopped green parts of the spring onion. Continue to simmer for a moment until the peas are no longer frozen, and add the juice of one lemon. Taste again – you may prefer more lemon juice (I like mine very sharp and usually use the juice of two lemons). Cover and cook for another 10 minutes until the peas are soft. They turn a slightly unfortunate colour with all this cooking, but they taste fabulous.

Take the pan off the heat skim off any fat. Stir in the chopped coriander and serve immediately.

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Invalid meatballs

I’m currently in Edinburgh, helping out a friend who’s recently had an operation. Part of my plan for the week has been to get her healing up by cooking things which are tasty and full of good things; we’ve been breakfasting on yoghurt, blueberries and raw almonds; drinking unsweetened cranberry juice diluted with fizzy water; chomping our way through antioxidant-dense sweet potatoes – I don’t think I’ve ever consumed so many vitamins in such a short period before.

I made these meatballs a couple of evenings ago, when the extremely lovely Marsha Klein came round to visit us for dinner and conversation about general anaesthetic. The wounded GSE is, I have noticed, not so keen on vegetables on their own, so I hid a great wodge of spinach (niacin, zinc and vitamin-rich stuff, although the iron content is overstated by Popeye) in the meatballs along with some big handfuls of herbs. A bit of stale bread, soaked in milk, makes these really light and toothsome, and the herbs, lemon and coriander seeds give them a lovely aromatic lift. Alongside some buttered, herby rice; green beans stir-fried with garlic and lemon juice; some Greek butter beans and imam bayaldi from the deli; and a hearty dollop of home-made tzatziki (directions below), these went down an absolute treat. To make enough health-giving meatballs to serve four, you’ll need:

Meatballs
500g minced lamb
2 thick slices stale white bread
50ml milk
4 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
100g raw baby spinach leaves
25g each fresh coriander, parsley and mint
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon paprika
Zest of 1 lemon
1½ teaspoons salt
Several hefty turns of the pepper grinder
Olive oil to fry

Tzatziki
6 inches of cucumber, sliced into 1-inch slivers
6 tablespoons Greek yoghurt
20g fresh mint
1 small clove garlic

Tear the bread into little pieces about the size of your fingernail, and soak them in the milk in a small bowl. Dice the onion and garlic finely, chop the herbs and spinach and grind the coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle. Use your hands to squeeze together the lamb, soaked bread, and all the other meatball ingredients except the olive oil until you have distributed everything evenly – keep squeezing as you go, and you’ll find everything sticks together quite satisfyingly. Roll into meatballs about the size of a ping-pong ball, place them on a plate and refrigerate for at least an hour to allow them to firm up. (This will prevent the meatballs from coming apart while cooking, and helps them keep a nice round shape.)

While the meatballs are cooking, chop the cucumber into inch-long sections and julienne (cut into matchsticks) each of these finely. Crush the garlic clove and chop up the mint, then stir the cucumber, garlic and mint into the yoghurt. Set aside.

When you are ready to cook the meatballs, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan and fry them, turning regularly to make sure they are browned all over, for 15 minutes. Serve with a dollop of tzatziki, and feel free to nix all those health benefits by drinking a large glass of red wine while you eat.

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Lamb loin fillet with caper butter sauce

I’m having some trouble writing coherently today because I have one eye (OK – two eyes) on the news – I’m obsessing somewhat about the US election, and I really, really hope the polls are accurate. The BBC is currently showing helicopter footage of a queue of voters in Virginia – it’s so long that a helicopter is the only way they can film it.

Here’s a really fantastic lamb dish to serve to someone you’re trying to impress. Loin fillets are seared in olive oil and roasted briefly, so they’re still lovely and pink in the centre, then served with a butter sauce made dense and salty with shallots, anchovies and capers. The anchovies give amazing savoury depth and richness to the dish and go fabulously with lamb, but when cooked like this they don’t taste fishy – in fact, they melt into the sauce so completely that you will be able to serve this to anchovy-haters with no problems.

To serve two, you’ll need:

2 lamb loin fillets
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 shallots
4 anchovies
2 teaspoons capers (use tiny ones in wine vinegar)
1 tablespoon cream
100g salted butter
1 clove garlic
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Fresh basil to garnish

Crush the garlic and rub it all over the lamb with the lemon zest, a little salt and plenty of pepper. Put aside for an hour at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 200° C.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan until it starts to shimmer, and sear the lamb all over in it. The pan must be very hot – you’re aiming to brown the lamb to a lovely mahogany colour. Place the whole, seared fillets in a roasting dish and put in the oven for ten minutes.
When the lamb has had ten minutes in the oven, take it out and rest it in its cooking dish in a warm place for another ten minutes while you make the sauce.

While the lamb is resting, make the sauce. Melt the butter in the frying pan (over a lower heat now) and add the finely chopped shallots. Simmer the shallots in the butter for five minutes, then add the anchovies and cook, stirring, until they have melted into the sauce. Still over a low heat, stir in the cream and capers, then use a balloon whisk to beat the lemon juice into the sauce. Start with half the juice and taste as you add more until you have a sauce which is tart and buttery all at once.

Slice the fillets into medallions and arrange on the plate with a drizzle of the sauce and some basil to garnish.

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Aromatic braised lamb shanks

A few years ago, when lamb shanks hadn’t appeared on every pub menu in the country, they were a great cheap alternative to other cuts. These days, unfortunately, they’re a bit pricier as people have become less scared of pieces of meat with bones in them – a shame, because when braised they’re easy to handle and taste fantastic, their meat sweet from proximity to the bone and luxurious in the mouth from long simmering.

Because this is such a lusciously rich cut, lamb shanks benefit from lots of aromatics to lift the flavour. I’ve used a mixture of French and Moroccan flavours to produce what I imagine you might do with lamb shanks in Marrakesh. I have never been to Marrakesh, and this would probably be considered totally weird by any real Moroccans, but I’m very pleased with the results. Don’t be put off by the long ingredients list; this isn’t hard to make, and can all be done on the stove top.

To serve two, you’ll need:

2 lamb shanks
3 carrots
5 sticks celery
1 large white onion
1 head garlic
½ bottle red wine
800ml stock (use lamb stock if you have some in the freezer – otherwise chicken will be fine)
800g passata
2 tablespoons tomato puree
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 heaped tablespoon soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon Ras al Hanout
1 inch piece of ginger, grated
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
½ stick cinnamon
2 dried chilllies
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 can chick peas
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Dice the onions, carrots and celery, chop the garlic and grind the fennel, cumin and coriander seeds together in a mortar and pestle. Rub the lamb shanks with salt and pepper.

Heat about 5 tablespoons of olive oil over a high flame in the bottom of a heavy casserole dish with a close-fitting lid until it begins to shimmer, then brown the lamb shanks all over in it. Remove the browned meat to a large bowl, and turn the heat down to medium. Add the diced vegetables to the oil you browned the meat in and sweat them with the garlic, grated ginger, Ras al Hanout, ground spices, thyme, cinnamon and chillies.

Cook the aromatic mixture without browning until the vegetables are turning soft, keeping everything moving, then return the lamb to the casserole. Pour over the wine, stock and passata and simmer for five minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest with some salt to taste (I used just over a tablespoon for this volume of sauce.) Turn the heat down to a very gentle simmer, put the lid on and leave for three hours, turning the lamb shanks in the sauce a couple of times during cooking.

When the three hours are up, add the drained chick peas to the pan and simmer for a further fifteen minutes. The sauce will have become rich and thick (insert joke about ideal spouse here). Skim off any fat that has risen to the surface, and serve with mashed potatoes to mop up the delicious sauce.

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Malaysian curried lamb shoulder

I’m cheating a bit here. The flavours are bang-on Malaysian, but you’d be unlikely to find a shoulder joint cooked in this way in Malaysia proper, where bite-sized pieces of meat are the norm in this kind of a curry. I decided to cook half a lamb shoulder on the bone in this curry sauce to maximise the flavour by keeping the meat near the bone – and because I love the fall-off-the-bone texture that a fatty shoulder achieves after a couple of hours slow cooking.

What makes a curry definably Malaysian? A few things – the spicing will be rather different from Indian curries, making use of more eastern aromatics like lemongrass, coriander, star anise and ginger. The liquid in the curry will probably be coconut milk, rather than yoghurt or any other dairy product.

I’ve made my own curry paste here, but if you don’t have the time or the inclination, you should be able to find good Malaysian curry powders and pastes on sale in any Chinese supermarket. I particularly like Yeo’s curry powder. This will make more paste than you need, but it keeps well in the fridge for a few weeks if you put it in a jar and pour over some oil to stop the air getting to the paste.

To serve two greedy people, you’ll need:

Curry paste
4 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
12 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise flowers
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
3 stalks lemongrass
1 peeled piece galangal, about the length of your thumb (substitute with extra ginger if you can’t find any)
1 peeled piece ginger, about the length of your thumb
3 fresh birds-eye chillies (cili padi in Malay – cut down here if you want to reduce the heat)
10 dried chillies (you can find sun-dried cili kering, a less fearsome chilli than cili padi, in some Chinese supermarkets – otherwise, use what you can find)
1 teaspoon turmeric powder or 1 grated fresh turmeric root
1 bulb garlic

Lamb and sauce
½ shoulder of lamb, on the bone
2 large onions
1 can coconut milk
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 handful coriander leaves
Salt
Flavourless oil for frying

Preheat the oven to 180° C (350° F).

Begin by heating a couple of teaspoons of oil in a heavy pan with a lid, large enough to fit the lamb in snugly. The pan should be able to fit inside your oven. When the oil is very hot, sear the lamb on all sides, and remove it to a plate.

Chop the onions finely and fry them with two tablespoons of the curry paste in the same oil you seared the lamb in. Add a little more oil if necessary. Fry, stirring all the time, until the onions are translucent and soft (about eight minutes).

Return the meat to the pan with any juices it has released onto its plate. Pour over the coconut milk, add the salt and the soy sauce, and bring the whole confection to a gentle simmer. Put the lid on and put the pan in the oven for 2 hours, turning the meat occasionally.

Taste the sauce when the cooking time is finished – you may find you want to add a spot of sugar or a squeeze of lemon juice. Skim off any fat that’s floating on top of the sauce. Peel the skin off the lamb and discard. Sprinkle over the fresh coriander leaves and serve with rice. I like a salad of fresh pineapple and cucumber with this.

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Lamb casserole with apricots and preserved lemon

Moroccan lambLooking back over the last couple of weeks, it strikes me that I’m cooking an awful lot of orange stuff. (There are things you’ve not seen, too – I find myself repeatedly making potatoes mashed with swede and carrot as a side dish, and roasting butternut squashes for my lunch.) I am guessing that this has something to do with shortening days and a craving for sunshine, and that after we start getting more sunlight again after December 21, I’ll start moving towards yellow food and onward through the spectrum until we get back to the tomato season again.

This is another recipe for those of you who made the preserved lemons from a few months back. They’re smelling just wonderful now; all the flavour has been pulled out of the spices in the jar and has lodged itself in the flesh of the lemons. Strangely Christmas-y, via Morocco.

The other ingredients in this recipe are largely Moroccan (although I doubt that a real Moroccan would look very kindly on the flour-thickened cider sauce). A few companies in the UK produce harissa, but I only recommend one – Belazu, who also make preserved lemons if you don’t have your own, do a very fine, warmly spiced harissa made with rose petals. It’s available in most supermarkets. I’ve tried a few other brands, and they are nothing like as good.

To serve two greedy people, you’ll need:

2-inch piece of ginger
5 cloves garlic
4 shallots
12 apricots
500g lamb neck fillets
1 tsp harissa
½ a preserved lemon
1 litre cider
1 sprig rosemary
1 tbsp flour
Oregano to garnish
Olive oil

Cut the lamb into cubes and heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pan (as always, Le Creuset pans are your best bet here for a really even heat). When the oil is hot, brown the lamb pieces a few at a time and remove them to a bowl when seared.

When you have browned all the lamb, look at the pan – if there is only very little oil left, add another tablespoonful. Bring the heat down to medium and add the shallots to the pan. When the shallots are beginning to take on some colour, add the sliced garlic, the julienned ginger, the lamb, the diced skin of the half-lemon (reserve the flesh) and the apricots to the pan. Cook, stirring well, for another five minutes, then add the flour to the pan, stirring to make sure the flour is coating everything.

Pour the cider over the lamb and add the diced flesh of the lemon, the rosemary and the harissa to the mixture. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover and leave to simmer for two hours. When the two hours are up, taste the sauce. You may not need to add any salt (there is lots in the lemon), but I found an extra teaspoonful made the balance just right. Garnish the dish with oregano.

The cider will have turned into a sweetly fruity sauce, and the lamb will be extremely tender. I served this with mashed potato, but it’s also very good with couscous.

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Kofta kebab

We fancied lamb for Easter, but didn’t feel like a roast. The answer came with the weather forecast; it was a gloriously sunny weekend, so I hauled the barbecue out for its first kebab recipe of the year.

This juicy, spicy kebab, also called a kofte kebab, is great served with a selection of mezze-type spreads, salad and pitta bread. I made hummus and tzatziki (just a tub of yoghurt with a generous handful of chopped mint and very finely chopped raw garlic), and a big bowl of aubergine caviar. Cooked over charcoal, the kebabs are deliciously smoky, but if the weather isn’t up to it you can cook them under the grill.

To make about eight kebabs you’ll need:

500g good-quality lamb mince
2 medium onions
4 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 large handful fresh parsley
1 small handful fresh mint
1 large egg
Salt and pepper

Grind the cumin and coriander roughly in a mortar and pestle with a teaspoon of salt. Put the spices, herbs, onions, garlic and the egg in a food processor and blitz until everything is chopped. Add the meat and blitz again until everything is well-mixed. (Don’t completely purée the meat – aim for a reasonably rough texture.)

Form handfuls of the meat mixture around bamboo skewers. (The skewers make the kebabs really easy to turn and move around on the grill, as well as holding things together.) Grill on a hot barbecue or under the kitchen grill for about ten minutes, turning regularly. Serve immediately.

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Slow-roast citrus lamb shoulder with pilaf and accompaniments

I hate this time of year. The weather’s glum, it gets dark absurdly early, and waking up to a foggy view over very damp fenland full of dead things does not make me leap out of bed springheeled with happiness. It’s time for some summery spicing before I am driven to emigrate.

I’ve written about how brilliant slow-roast lamb shoulder is before – the meat becomes falling-apart-tender, all the fat renders out, and the skin becomes crisp and delicious. In this recipe, you’ll push tiny pieces of lemon zest and garlic into pockets in the fatty flesh before cooking, infusing the whole joint with sunny flavour. I accompanied the lamb with hummus (I blogged the very simple recipe last year), an idiot-proof tzatziki (no recipe needed here – I just stirred a handful of chopped mint into a tub of Greek yoghurt with a little crushed garlic and some pepper), roast pointy peppers and a spicy pilaf. This makes a fantastic supper dish if you have guests, as the hummus, tzatziki and peppers can be prepared well in advance. The lamb needs very little attention for the four hours it’s in the oven, and the pilaf is all cooked quickly, in one pan. To serve six, you’ll need:

Lamb
1 lamb shoulder
Zest of 1 lemon, pared into strips
1 large bunch rosemary
5 cloves garlic, cut in half lengthwise
Salt

Using a very sharp small knife, make little pockets in the lamb shoulder just large enough for half a clove of garlic. Push a piece of garlic and a strip of lemon zest into pockets all over the joint. Lay the shoulder in a roasting tin on a bed of rosemary, skin side up. Sprinkle the skin with salt and place in an oven at 220° C for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 170° C and roast for four hours.

Pilaf
1¾ lb basmati rice
4 pints chicken stock
6 large shallots
2 tablespoons butter
5 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon Ras-al-Hanout
2 teaspoons harissa
1 large pinch saffron, steeped in an eggcup of boiling water for 20 minutes
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 handful sultanas
Salt and pepper
1 handful chopped fresh coriander

Slice the shallots finely and sauté them in the butter in a large pan with a lid until starting to brown. Add the chopped garlic and all the spices except the saffron and harissa, and continue to fry for four minutes. Add the sugar and vinegar to the pan and simmer for two minutes until the mixture looks syrupy. Add the rice, stirring well to make sure it is well coated, with the sultanas, salt and saffron. Pour over the stock and bring to a fast boil, then immediately turn the heat down, put the lid on and simmer gently for 12 minutes. Stir the coriander and pepper through the finished rice.

Peppers
Slice sweet red peppers in half lengthways (use pointed peppers if you can find them – they’re sweeter than bell peppers) and place an anchovy fillet and sliced clove of garlic in each half. Drizzle with olive oil, place a knob of butter in each pepper half, and put in the oven alongside the lamb for the last hour of cooking. These peppers taste their very best at room temperature, so take them out at the same time you take the lamb out, and leave them to cool as the lamb rests while you prepare the pilaf. The lamb will keep its heat as it rests, but if you place the peppers on a cold plate they’ll be the perfect temperature when it’s time to eat.

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Teriyaki lamb shoulder

There are two ways to get the best out of a chunk of lamb – you can roast it fast and hot to preserve all the fragrance (see Frangelita’s take on it, which sounds fantastic), or you can cook it slowly at a low, low temperature for maximum tenderness and flavour. Frangelita’s honey/soy mixture got me thinking in the direction of teriyaki, and the shoulder of lamb in the freezer suddenly started to look a lot like serendipity.

This lamb is cooked for six hours, so the fat melts into the flesh. The fibres in the muscle will be coming apart so the meat is falling off the bone; you should be able to carve it with a blunt spoon. The skin becomes crisp, and the teriyaki sauce and juces from the onion permeate the moist, tender flesh until it’s perfectly delicious. I served the lamb with rice, and some spaghetti squash tossed in parsley and butter. If you’re using spaghetti squash, just prick it a few times with a fork, pop it in the oven an hour before serving at the same temperature as the lamb, and remove the seeds when it comes out of the oven. Fluff some butter, salt and fresh parsley through with a fork before serving.

To serve four, you’ll need:

1 shoulder lamb
1 wine glass full of teriyaki sauce
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 tablespoon grated garlic
1 teaspoon sesame oil
3 onions, peeled and quartered
Water

Preheat the oven to 150° C.

Lay the onions on a non-stick baking dish with their cut sides facing skywards. Rub the garlic and ginger over the lamb, and place the joint in the tray, surrounded by the onions. Drizzle the teriyaki sauce over the lamb’s skin and dip the cut sides of the onions into any that leaks onto the bottom of the dish.

Place the baking dish into the oven. Check every 45 minutes that the liquid isn’t boiling dry – if it looks as if it may be, add a few tablespoons of water. Use the liquid to baste the onions and the lamb.

After six hours the onions will be caramelised and gooey. The lamb will be incredibly moist and tender, with a crisp crust. Rest for ten minutes before pulling the meat apart with two forks, and serve with rice to dribble the onion-y juices over.

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Provençale roast lamb with flageolet beans

Spring is finally here in Cambridgeshire. In celebration of the fact that some of my bulbs are finally flowering, I thought I’d eat a dear little fluffy baa-lamb.

This recipe is wonderful for this time of year, when the sun is bright and there’s a jug of tulips on the windowsill. The herbs and sweet tomatoes are a real foretaste of summer. Enjoy this with a cold glass of white wine, or a pint of real ale.

To serve two, you’ll need:

½ a shoulder of lamb
100g tin flageolet beans, drained
10 small tomatoes
6 cloves garlic
1 glass white wine
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 teaspoon Marigold vegetable bouillon
A few stems of rosemary
A few stems of thyme
4 teaspoons quince jelly (use redcurrant if you can’t get hold of quince)
1 handful parsley
1 handful oregano

Begin by making little slits in the skin of the lamb – six to a half-shoulder will be plenty. Stuff each resulting pocket with a quarter of a clove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary. (You may want to leave the knife in the slit and twist it to fit the garlic and rosemary into the hole.) Slice the rest of the garlic finely. Sprinkle the skin of the lamb with salt.

Quarter the tomatoes, and mix them with the the remaining rosemary and garlic and the rest of the ingredients in a heavy baking tray. Place the lamb on top, skin side up, and roast for an hour and twenty minutes at 180°C.

While the lamb is roasting, finely chop the parsley and oregano, and combine it half of it with two teaspoons of the quince jelly and a large pinch of salt. Remove the lamb from the oven and smear the herb paste all over the skin. Stir the other two teaspoons of quince jelly and the rest of the herbs into the beans around the lamb, and return to the oven for ten minutes, until glossy and beautiful.

The beans will have soaked up the juices from the tomatoes and meat, becoming sticky, rich and packed with flavour. You should be left with some meat for tomorrow’s sandwiches – the beans are also delicious cold.