Lamb Nihari
A slow cooked lamb curry? Oh my yes! When I first heard about a nihari I had to try it. This is a mix of a few recipes I found and is done with a whole leg of lamb. It yields a tender pile of meat and a rich gravy-like sauce that isn’t overly spicy.
Step 1 - Spice mix
Grind the mace, nutmeg, fennel seeds, curry leaves, cinnamon, peppercorns, cumin seeds and cloves into a fine powder. Ideally using a spice grinder but a pestle and mortar will also work.
To this powder add ground ginger, smoked paprika and chilli powder.
Top tip: no need to roast spices first
Step 2 - Slow cook
Preheat the oven to 160 C.
Brown the leg of lamb all over in the vegetable oil in a frying pan, then transfer to a casserole dish.
In the same frying pan (don’t bother to clean it), add the ghee and fry the onions over a low heat until soft and translucent.
All the ground spice mix to the frying onions and the fresh ginger and chillies then quickly stir in.
Add this mixture to the casserole pot and pour over a litre of water.
Put the lid on the casserole and put in the oven for 3 hours. Occasionally turn the leg and baste.
After this time the meat should be close to falling off the bone. Remove the leg and, if desired, thicken the sauce with a little cornflour/water paste.
Serve with chopped fresh coriander, sliced chillies and a wedge of lemon, and your favourite curry side dishes.
Ingredients
1 tbsp mace
1/2 whole nutmeg
2 tbsp fennel seeds
3 curry leaves
1/4 cinnamon stick
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp cloves
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 leg of lamb
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp ghee
1 large onion, sliced
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
3 or 4 whole fresh chillies
Fresh coriander, lemon and chillies to finish
