KOLHAPURI LAMB SHANKS

Another Lamb recipe, and another recipe from GUNPOWDER. Its a slow cooking dish so it does take a while, but once it is on, just leave it, untill the meat falls away from the bone.

Interestingly the author suggest if you are lucky enough to have left overs, you can brush the outside of the lamb with mayo and grill it, sounds odd, but it creates the most wonderful crust apparently? I am still waiting for left overs!

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoon coconut oil
2 onions finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves finely chopped
2 tomatoes finely diced
4 lamb shanks
3 tablespoon Deggi Mirch
2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon garam marsala
1 litre lamb stock
100 g freshly grated coconut
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons poppy seed
1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger peeled and julienne to serve
Freshly chopped coriander

METHOD

Heat the oil in a casserole dish and cook the onions for 10 minutes.

Stir in the turmeric, ginger, garlic and tomatoes and sizzle stirring for 10 minutes until the tomatoes have broken down.

Add the Lamb shanks and brown for 5 – 10 minutes till coated in the sauce. Stir in the deggi mirch, chilli powder, garam marsala and a pinch of salt. Add the stock. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and cover with the lid.

Dry roast the coconut in a frying pan over a medium heat for 2 – 3 minutes until golden. Transfer to a processor with the sesame seeds and poppy seeds and blend to a paste.

Stir the paste into the Lamb and place back the lid and continue cooking stirring occasionally over a low heat for 3 hours until the lamb falls off the bone.

Serve the Lamb in a dish with the sauce spooned on top and finish with fine matchsticks of fresh ginger and scatter the coriander leaves, and for a pretty note a hibiscus flower.

We had loads of the sauce left so we took it with us on the Wilton Week to spice up a chilli con carne for those who like their chilli s hot!

Deggi Mirch is a full flavoured chilli powder, slightly hotter then Paprika. Along with the yellow chilli powder it is available at specialist Indian supermarkets, or online.

That said you can swap the Deggi Mirch with two tablespoons of Paprika, and one of Cayenne. The same applies to the yellow chilli powder use Paprika. Use both according to your own resilience to chilli heat.

Original Recipe Gunpowder: Explosive Flavors from Modern India by Harneet Baweja, Davina Seth, and Nirmal Save