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The Curry Guy’s Champaran Welsh Lamb handi curry

  • Prep time 15 mins
  • Cook time 50 mins
  • Serves 5+

Ingredients

  • 900g PGI Welsh Lamb leg, on the bone, diced
  • 125ml mustard oil
  • 1 x 5cm cinnamon stick
  • 6 green cardamom pods, bruised
  • 3 black cardamom pods, bruised (optional)
  • 2 Indian bay leaves
  • 4 medium red onions, grated
  • 10 garlic cloves, unpeeled, smashed and finely chopped
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder
  • ½ tsp ground turmeric
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground fennel
  • 2 tsp garam masala
  • 6 whole green bird’s eye chillies, slit down the middle
  • 4 whole garlic bulbs
  • 3 tbsp (generous) melted ghee

For the dough seal

  • 6 tbsp plain flour

Method

Recipe courtesy of The Curry Guy

 

  1. It is best to purify the mustard oil first by bringing it to smoking point and letting it cool a bit. Then heat it back up over direct heat and add the whole spices and bay leaves to infuse for about 30 seconds.
  2. Take off the heat. Pour half of the mustard oil into your clay pot. If you don’t have one, just use a metal saucepan with a lid. Add the grated onions, chopped garlic, salt and all of the ground spices. Stir well.
  3. Add the green chillies, whole garlic bulbs and the diced lamb. Pour the remaining mustard oil over it all and stir well so that everything is coated evenly.
  4. Now make a soft dough using the flour and a little water. You won’t be eating this, so no need to worry too much about it. You just need to seal the pot with it.
  5. Run the soft dough all around the rim of the pot and then place the lid on top to seal.
  6. Place the sealed pot right on the hot coals at the hottest part of the fire and leave for 3 minutes. Shake the pot to move the ingredients around inside and place on the coals at the lower heat part of the fire. (If cooking on the hob, using a lidded saucepan, cook on a high heat for the first 3 minutes, then reduce the heat to very low for the remaining cooking time.)
  7. Every ten minutes or so, pick up the pot and give it a few good hard shakes. This will help ensure that the meat cooks without burning to the bottom of the pot.
  8. After about 50 minutes, the meat inside will be ‘fall off the bone’ tender and the garlic bulbs will be squeezably soft. Take to the table and remove the lid. This is a real showpiece and the aroma is amazing. Stir in the melted ghee and serve with rice or naans.

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