This is in my top 5 recipes ever and my top 2 lamb recipes. It beats out braised lamb shank in all its forms and sauces, and only comes second to 2-day marinated leg of lamb with dried figs and poppy seeds.
Sometimes you need an excuse to make a recipe, and part 3 in the Midnight Poutine series “Greg Got A Slow-Cooker” had to be written after Greg got back from Scotland and before Greg left town for Maine for the summer. This was a 3 day window of Indian food opportunity. In came the lamb.
Now, you can’t just make lamb. You need to make rice to soak up the luscious lamb juices, and then you need a yogurt, preferably with refreshing cucumber to cool down the body. You probably also need some kind of green vegetable or tomato salad. All Greg needed to worry about was the lamb, as it was the highlight of the meal, and the focus of the post.
Since he’d been in Edinburgh, he said I’d love all the “curries” there. That was the inspiration for making a lamb curry. These are not exactly traditional Indian curries, but are completely delicious. To recreate the Edinburgh curry effect for him (but better) I went to Judith Finlayson’s Slow-Cooker Cookbook and found a general beef curry, substituted lamb, and knew it would be great. I love this book, and since her recipes in the slow cooker still call for whole spices, it’s a lot closer to authentic Indian fare than something out of Bonnie Stern, much as I respect her. Judith Finlayson is no Madhur Jaffrey when it comes to Indian cooking either, mind you, but that wasn’t what I was going for this time.
…and Judith lived up to my expectations. I can’t describe how incredible this dish was…well, maybe I can. I bought the meat from Atwater market from a butcher who gave me the 2lbs of cubed Quebec lamb meat I wanted (not specifically organic, but I didn’t want to know and I didn’t ask and I couldn’t afford the $40 price tage on the organic place behind me. This came to $25 and the butcher was nice) along with a big bag of bones for free to make broth. THAT is why this recipe was amazing. I made my own lamb broth. It was the best broth I have ever made, and I used the recipe from Bonnie Stern’s HeartSmart: The Best of HeartSmart Cooking
The lamb…there isn’t even a lot of salt in this recipe but the result was perfectly salty, the meat was perfectly tender, not falling to pieces, but just chewy enough to release flavour in each bite, and the flavour was rich…the juice was flavoured perfectly with bay leaves, cumin, coriander, chili, cloves, cardamom, black pepper, ginger and garlic, with just a little turmeric for colour.
The cubes got browned in the oil, which had been heated on medium-high and turned up a tiny bit once the meat was added. You don’t want to slow-cook these things yet. You just want to sear them. I was worried they may have overcooked since they didn’t really brown. I think the heat should have been higher, but it all worked out fine. The meat got moved to the slow cooker, and a little of the fat got drained from the skillet. Then the onions were added.
Judith is very reasonable about the order of adding spices. None of this 37 seconds later, 11 seconds later stuff. I won’t say “nonsense” because it has never NOT worked when Jaffrey has told me to do it, but I question it…the slow-cooker recipes are made for people who don’t like asting time with things like counting to odd numbers, thank goodness. So everything else got added all at once, except the stock and bay leaves. I did grind the cumin and coriander, though, since the recipe called for ground, not whole. It didn’t specify if you should grind your own, but I always do this for freshness and flavour…and because I feel wasteful buying multiple versions of the same spice.
These coriander and cumin seeds are not yet ground…
Then the tomatoes, then the broth. Just a half a cup. I was tempted to put in more because I had gone to all that work to just use a half cup of broth, but no, Judith would not lead me astray, and if she had I wouldn’t know until later. Trust, Amie. Trust.
Everything got poured on top of the cubed meat in the slow-cooker stonewear, and mixed together. Yes, they call it “stonewear”. It doesn’t seem very stone-like to me. Just large, heavy and awkward, but perhaps the first slow-cooker ever was chiseled by our ancestors out of large slabs of stone off the side of a mountain somewhere. Who am I to argue with history and tradition? No one, that’s who.
I set the slow-cooker to high and had waited patiently for four hours. I prepped the rice, instructed Greg on how to wash the grains (5 times) then leave them to soak. Finally, a half hour before eating time we drained the grains again, added the right amount of water and turned on the heat. We made perfect rice. He fluffed after 25 minutes, then put it back on the low, low heat for another 5. Nothing burned. It would have been a miracle if this had been 6 months ago, but now I am relatively good at making perfect rice. I am channeling my inner rice guru/Indian mother, or I can stop being so dramatic about it and just say I’m retaining knowledge for once…definition of insanity and all, not learning from your mistakes and doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results…well, not this time.
When the rice went on the ground almonds had to be added to the lamb. Then back on HIGH for 30 minutes. It looked so luscious and thick. No cream, no dairy, no coconut. I love it. The pools of grease I expected weren’t even that bad, since the cubes had been decently trimmed and I’d skimmed the broth. Still, this was not a low-fat meal, and I could taste it…happily.
Chop, chop, chop tomatoes, grate, grate grate cucumbers, roast, roast, grind cumin. A little salt, a little pepper, a little cayenne, some yogurt and some parsley (wimpy cilantro) for the side dishes, and everything was ready.
There is absolutely nothing in the world like whole spices cooked on low heat for hours in a rich, meat-based sauce. Nothing. Cloves, cardamom, black peppercorns…then the almonds…so sweet and fresh. Do not use a bag of pre-ground almonds from the supermarket. Get them from a bulk place that goes through quantity fairly quickly. Turkish or Middle Eastern places are generally great, and my favourite place is currently in the Atwater market upstairs by Premiere Moisson. There are no words for the joy this meal brought me. I think the sounds I made were, in fact, not words. Just happiness. The description and representation of happiness are not words. So simple, happiness.
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