Hyderabadi Minced Lamb with Orange - Madhur Jaffrey, The Ultimate Curry Bible

With some mince and oranges to use up, this recipe by Madhur Jaffrey from the Ultimate Curry Bible was the one I chose for dinner the other night. She wrote that its not like anything shes ever tasted before, and shes right! An unusual but tasty curry with that comfort element of saucy mince meant this was a dinner I would make again!

Ingredients:

1 large orange
1 tsp ground turmeric 
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp corn or peanut oil
2 medium onions, peeled & sliced into fine half rings
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander 
4 cloves garlic, peeled & crushed
2 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled & finely grated
4 tbsp natural yoghurt
900g minced lamb
0.5 tsp ground turmeric
0.5 tsp cayenne pepper
250 ml fresh orange juice
1.5 tsp salt
1-3 fresh hot green chillies, sliced into very fine rounds
30 g fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped
30 g fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp garam masala

Peel off the orange rind, making sure to leave the white pith behind. Cut the rind into very fine 1-inch long julienne strips.

  

Combine the turmeric and salt with 1.5 litres of water in a pan and bring to the boil. Pour half into a measuring jug and reserve. Add the rind to the boiling liquid in the pan and boil rapidly for 1 minute. Empty the pan through a sieve and set over the sink. Pour the reserved turmeric water back into the pan and bring back to the boil. Put the rind back into the pan and boil again for a minute, then again strain through the sieve set over the sink. Rinse the rind under cold running water and set aside. 

Pour the oil into a large non-stick lidded pan set over a medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, stir in the onions and fry for 6-7 minutes or until reddish-brown.

Add the cumin and coriander and stir for 30 seconds. 

 Add the ginger and garlic. Stir and fry for a minute. 

Add the yoghurt, a tablespoon at a time, and stir it in, making sure it absorbed before adding more. 

Put in the meat, turmeric and cayenne pepper. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes, breaking up all the lumps in the meat. Add the orange juice, orange rind and salt. Stir and bring to a simmer. 

Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer gently for 40 minutes. Add the chillies, coriander, mint and garam masala. Stir to mix. Cover and continue to cook gently for a further 10 minutes.

I served this curry up with some home made flatbreads that you can find on this post, and some coriander from the garden for S. I hate the stuff, just the smell makes me whinge. S served his own up which is why its a ridiculous portion (he always does this with curry and regrets it).

This curry was pretty different, as you can certainly taste the orange and its not something youre used to tasting in your curries. S and I both enjoyed it, and would make it again if we had spare oranges laying around (which we often do...). It would be awesome wrapped up in some parathas with kachumber salad (in fact if I make it again I would much prefer it done this way!) or put into some sort of samosa. Its not too difficult to make, you just have to make sure you have everything prepared and ready to go at the start to make it as stress free as possible!

Its a different use of mince and oranges thats for sure!