curried lamb

the following was written while I was living in Nice, France. Spring of 2009

I woke up this morning after having dreamt of curried lamb shanks… Don’t ask why. I can never really find why I dream the things I dream of…It’s like asking a pink elephant why it is pink. After fighting the urge to stay in bed and trying to dismiss this thought from my head of tender, spicy lamb that had been slow cooked for hours, I gave in to it and went to the market. Let me note here that I have not been cooking as much as I originally thought I was going to, because the kitchen I have is completely BARE and lacking certain basic staples that one should have on hand when trying to prepare meals. I opted not to spend the 5 euro for a sack of flour that I was never going to finish in my time here and thus thrown out… I decided not to “build” a pantry stock for two months time…. If I were going to stay here long-term, then for sure I would. So, for lack of pantry items, I have taken most of my meals out: Coffee and a light snack in the morning time and then a small dinner, generally not costing me more than 15-20 euro for the day. Sometimes it works out to be cheaper than having to shop each day since I am just one person. But I digress…

Anyway, I shot off to the market, already crowded and set out to buy the smallest amounts of what I needed to make what I had dreamt about. First stop, the spice woman where I bought 50 grams of curry powder for 2,50 and very small HOT red peppers for 2,50. Next was a small handful of salad greens and a tomato for 1,40; two small carrots and a handful of small potatoes for .08 euro; ½ gram of small raisins and about 7 dried apricots for 1,60; a very small aubergine (sounds sexier than eggplant) and a very nice lady split a bunch of coriander with me since I did not need a whole one for about ,80 and lastly a small bag of cinnamon sticks for  2 euro. Next up… find the lamb shanks.

I went to the butcher, waited in line for what seemed like an hour. What’s really cool here is that each piece of meat is cut to order for the person. I chatted up the woman behind be asking her is she spoke a little English and could help me translate to Mr. Butcher what I wanted. I knew the word for lamb, and leg, however I found out that there is no real translation for shank and all he was willing to sell me was a gigot d’agneau which is a WHOLE leg…. I asked if he has epaule (shoulder) or any other lamb meat that was suitable for stewing…NO, just the leg. I asked him for half of it and he denied me again. I think he cursed at me a bit, I’m not sure…I respectfully declined, thanked him profusely for his time, apologized and took off to find an alternate source for my lamb. I remembered passing a small butcher shop near my home and ducked in there. Behold…. The last lamb shank they had, which was really a very small leg. In French, I asked for the lamb, he offered to cut me a piece, I told him, no, I want the whole thing. He cleaned it up a bit for me, wrapped it in lovely wax paper and asked me for 14,50 euro. I happily paid, tucked my lamb under my arm and set off to buy some wine. Two bottles of Viogner for 9 euro…Grand total: 35,10 (keep in mind I got two bottles of wine… for the week) euro… I’ll for sure get two meals out of this.

I had ½ a tomato, an onion and garlic at home already…
Ok… So, I’m going to throw a recipe out here and I hope that you try it, let me know how you like it…. If you don’t like lamb, try it with your favorite stewing meat be it beef, chicken thighs would work, rabbit… I’ll post the step by step pictures as well.

1 small leg of lamb
2 teaspoons of good curry powder
salt, pepper
2 cinnamon sticks
½ onion, cut in a large dice
2 large cloves of garlic, smashed
6 small dried red peppers (the really small ones and adjust according to your taste)
2 small carrots or one large one, cut in about two-inch pieces
½ tomato, cut in a large dice
6 small fingerlings potatoes, whole
½ small aubergine, cut in large dice
6 dried apricots, quartered
¼ cup of small raisins or dried currents

Note: I was super sad to find that my shank did not fit the one pot I have here… So, I had to destroy this gorgeous leg and cut it into smaller parts.

Step one: Season the meat with salt, pepper and a generous amount of a good curry powder and let it sit for a few minutes while your pot gets hot… Add enough olive oil to coat the bottom without being too much. You don’t want to fry the meat, just sear it enough to get some good color

Step two: Brown your meat in batches, taking care not to overcrowd the pot. Continue this until all of your meat is brown and in a separate dish.

Step three: add a bit more oil to your pan then add the onion, garlic and peppers. Let them sizzle a bit and get a bit of color.

Step four: Return the meat to the pan with the carrots, tomato and stir it around a bit. When you hear it sizzle like it sounds like it’s drying out, add a good splash or two of dry white wine and let it cook off.

Step five: Pour your self a glass while you have the bottle in you hand if you like, not going to hurt anything at this point.

Step six: Add two cinnamon sticks and enough water to cover the meat by like ¼ – ½ inch let it boil, then turn the heat down low, cover and let it simmer for 3 hours or so… The longer you let it cook, the more tender your meat will be.

Step seven: Taste it… see if you need to add more salt, more red peppers, more curry… what ever you like, taste it adjust. If you happen to add too much salt you can either leave it (because you are going to add potatoes and aubergine, which suck up salt like crazy) or you can add a bit more water to mellow it out.

Step eight: Let it simmer on low for a bit longer (you’re almost done, but how GREAT does your house smell right now????)

Step nine: Add your fingerlings potatoes (your cooking liquid should be a bit thick at this point, if it’s not, no worries), aubergine, dried apricots, raisins and place your potatoes under as much liquid as you can. Cover it up and sit back for about twenty minutes, stirring once or twice.

Step ten: Stick a knife in your potato to check doneness and chop up some cilantro.

Step eleven: Serve it up, sprinkle some cilantro on top and EAT…Don’t be ashamed to lick your plate, I did…