Without further ado, here´s the recipe for the beautiful curry we made recently when Best Buddy came to stay recently.
We adapted the recipe (just a little) from one in Anjum Anand´s book Indian Food Made Easy. She uses lamb, we used goat. We served it with roti, plain boiled basmati rice, tarka dhal, and poppadums. In the excitement I forgot to make a cooling raita to accompany it. As it turned out, the dish was not hot at all (I would add more chili next time, but that is just personal taste). However, this did allow all the beautiful and individual spice flavours to shine through.
Leftovers were to be for me, me, me. Unfortunately Big Man got in on the act and decided that it was really rather a fabulous tasting dish, so they ended up being for us, us us. This time without poppadums or roti, but with raita. Recipes for the tarka dhal, spinach and roti to follow soon.
Ingredients (the recipe says it serves 6-8 but we thought it was for 4, even with all the accompanying dishes we made)
- 25g fresh ginger, peeled
- 10 large cloves of garlic, peeled (to weigh about 30g)
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 each black and green cardamom pods (we used all green)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
- 800g lamb cubes with bone in (I used goat with boneless meat from the leg and ribs, chopped into small pieces)
- 1-2 whole green chilies (the recipe says optional – we used 1 but I would use 2 or 3 next time)
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp garam masala (we used a garam masala spice mix made for me which we then ground)
- Salt, to taste (we found it needed quite a lot)
- 4 medium tomatoes, puréed (we used conserva)
- 500ml water
- Chopped coriander to stir in when dish is cooked
Make a paste of the ginger and garlic, adding a little water to help blend.
Heat the oil in a large non stick pan or pot. Add the whole cardamom pods and bay and stir into the warm oil before adding the onion. Fry until the onion starts to brown, then add the lamb and stir until the meat is sealed. Now add the ginger and garlic paste, the spices and a little salt (you can adjust the salt at the end of cooking). Cook for a few minutes until the pan is dry.
Add the tomatoes and bring to a boil then simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Add the water, bring back to a boil then simmer (covered) for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally. We removed the lid for the last 5 minutes as there was a lot of liquid. When cooked, taste and adjust seasoning and stir in the coriander.
To make a simple raita mix together about 2 tablespoons of finely chopped mint, a finely chopped (small) red or white onion, a finely chopped piece of peeled cucumber (about 10cm long), 2 tbs lemon juice, a good pinch of salt and half a cup of creamy natural yogurt.
Chica Andaluza 
Looks delicious. I like that you used goat. It’s actually available here and I’ve been looking for a reason to buy some.
Round here it´s much more commonly used than lamb and pretty cheap too – a hole kid (they´re very small though) – is about 35-40 euro buying direct from the goatherds.
De.li.cious! Scrumity x infinity.
🙂 Mandy
I love your word Scrumity….will have to adopt it!
Absolutely! 🙂
There’s something about the name ‘tarka’ dhal that just makes me think that isn’t vegetarian either. But I love a good curry. 😉
Funnily enough it is vegetarian – nothing to do with Tarka the Otter! It´s made with yellow split peas and is super easy and very tasty 🙂
ROFL 😉
I am such an old fart that I had to look up ROFL…hee hee! Now I am ROFL!
I recognised the dhal word but the tarka was putting me off! Looking forward to the recipe. 😉
That looks so good…
No way to get goat meat here, and even lamb – other than racks, legs and lion chops – is difficult. Would chicken pieces work?
I think this would be great with chicken, and even tastier with chicken joints on the bone. In fact, I think it would also work well as a veggie curry as the flavours are so lovely.
That’s what I was thinking – hacked-up legs and thighs with the bones in…Thanks!
Goat is not going to happen in our house. My wife just about tolerates chicken! Looks good to me though.
Chicken or veggies would be good with this too I think Roger…in fact, am planning to give it a go soon as I didn´t get much of a look in on the leftovers 😉
I bet the leftovers were even better after having sat for 24 hours. Oooop you didn’t get any 🙂
I love curry goat, such a distinct flavour, so rich and YUM. reminds me that I havent had a proper goat curry in a loooong time. Doesn’t the goat meat take longer to cook than lanb, or is that why it was de-boned. i seem to remember goat curries taking all day to cook….
I think goat (as in fully grown) would probably be a little tougher and therefore take longer to cook (but oh my, does it taste good). Here they sell the milk goats (sorry, not sure what the proper term is in English…suckling kid?) as the full grown ones are used for their milk/cheese so they are only a few weeks old and very tender. We weighed the leg before de boning it and it only weighed 800g, so not much more than a large turkey leg! Am going to have to make this again, firstly because Big Man is now getting a taste for curries and seems to have enjoyed my recent efforts and secondly because as a result of (1) I am not getting to eat the better tasting leftovers the next day!
Thanks Tanya, I understand a bit more now, and why it would be quick to cook. I’ve never seen that kind of meat on sale here, presumably there would be somewhere in London!
And yes to more curries, it seems you have converted Big Man 🙂
Even in London, where you can get goat in the west Indian butcher´s shops, I´ve never seen kid for sale. I imagine it would be horrendously expensive even if you could get hold of it as goat farming is not as typical as it is here 😦 Hopefully we´ll be making a lot more curries in the future and, bizarrely, I find them cooling in the heat of summer (rather like many people enjoy a hot cup or tea to refresh themselves)!
Excellent – I’d eat more goat if it wasn’t so expensive in London.
Maybe we can start a business selling goat in London via your pal Marek?! Mind you, petrol is so expensive we´d have to walk them across Spain and France rather than in a refrigerated lorry, by which time they´d be old goats 😉
My local butchers faint if you ask them for rabbit! I can imagine the looks I’d get if I went in asking for goat!
On second thoughts….it might be worth if for the entertainment value. 😉
Start them off gently asking for pigs trotters!
I live in Lancashire…pigs trotters are not a problem! LOL!
This looks marvelous! I much prefer kid to lamb, reminds me of veal. 🙂
It does have a very distinctive taste – I had to wait until I came to Spain to try it though!
Mmmm. I have been left looking after a firends goats while she is on holiday – but I think she is expecting them to be there when she gets back!
Looks a lovely recipe – I will probably have to use lamb if I try it! We had BBC red lentil and sweet potato with spinach dhal for tea and I can recommend it. (Claims to serve 2 – and does. Amply)
Oops – don´t think your pal would be too pleased to come home and find her little goat had been turned into curry 😦 I love the BBC recipes as you can see how they turn out for others, will have to look that one up as it sounds very good indeed.
Looks just wonderful!
Thanks Greg!
Oh, yum! Nobody here raises goat that I know of. And I don’t know why that is. Well, I guess I should say, people raise them for milking for cheese, but I never see the meat for sale. Which is too bad.
And I read somewhere that more of the world´s population eats goat than lamb – not in the US or UK though!
gosh i have to try it.
Can highly recommend it – thanks for popping by and commenting!
What a great curry. I haven’t tried goat before but I’m sure it’s wonderful with all those spices and flavours xx
It really does (well, to me at least) taste like young lamb, so if you like lamb, chances are you´d enjoy goat too!
Now that’s a curry! Awesome 😀 I never tried goat before either, though my local supermarket was selling packs of “half goats” the other day – legs, flanks and all sorts of other stuff… just the meat and bone, no innards. It was incredibly cheap for the amount of meat – I was very tempted to buy it and then my wise-wife brought me back down to earth by reminding me that we barely have space in the freezer and fridge as it is, without trying to pack half a goat in there :p
Your freezer sounds like my freezer! Am always trying to pack something else into it. Good that you can get goat though – seems to be very difficult to get for most people.
Thats a really nice curry recipe!
Thank you Raymund, we really enjoyed it!
This looks and sounds just fantastic! I’ll have mine with lamb and spicy, please! 🙂
Coming right up!
Everything about this dish sounds delicious, Tanya. I need to start writing down the names & ingredients of your curries, along with those of a few of our blogging friends. I’ll take the “list” with me to “Little India” the next time and make an informed menu selection for a change. I mean, you can only have tandoori whatever so many times. 🙂
PS … Zia says “Hello!”
Sounds like a good idea….wish I could join you 😉 Hope you had a good time with Zia, am off to check out your post. Give her a big “abraccio” from me next time you see her!
This sounds amazing, do you think it can work with beef?
I love all the flavors in it
Absolutely , or even chicken pieces. The taste was beautiful!