Do you have a Lamb List? If you don't already, start one now. Keep a list of the people you know who like lamb. With its strong and distinct flavor (and polarizing moral grounds), a palatte either loves or hates the meat. I was having guests over who aren't lamb eaters, but it was a midweek meal and I had a hankering for curry. I decided to substitute chicken for lamb and cook the Fiddlehead's Lamb Curry, the poultry version.
My mortar & pestle came in handy for grinding the roasted spices
I made Garam Masala out of the cookbook's pantry items section. Nutmeg from the whole, cardamom, cumin, pepper and more, I crushed all in my mortar with pestle and baked away. Talk about aroma therapy. Now this is the problem with cooking blogs: you cannot smell a cooking blog, and therefore miss out on the intoxicating, mouth watering smells coming from my kitchen when I roasted these spices together.
A wide variety of spices baked and blended together
The curry came together nicely. It's very creamy and rich. Serve it with yogurt and chutney as called for in the recipe--it adds a nice contrasting coolness.
Voila! Chicken curry served with chutney and yogurt
I'm just now starting my Lamb List, so if you love baby sheep for dinner, let me know and I'll add you. And the next time I'll do lamb curry with lamb.
Lamb doesn't have to be baby lamb...you can get all grown up lamb too. I was looking it up and here's the definitions:
ReplyDeleteLamb is generally a baby sheep that is less than 12 months old - the meat is tender and does not have as strong of a flavor.
Mutton is from a sheep that is over 1year old. It has a much stronger flavor and is, obviously, not as tender as lamb.
Here's a great website I found: http://www.sheep101.info/lamb.html