Lamb curry made with Great Aunt Aline's curry powder recipe

There had been a bit of a discussion about a curry powder recipe on the wildfood.info web site, one of our members Mary had a Great Aunt who was out in India in the days of the Raj. She had brought a recipe back with her when they returned home to the Channel Isles.

Mary had faithfully copied the recipe and I have done a bit of conversion, but kept the proportions about right.

 As  1oz =28.35g so I used 30g

Coriander seed 3oz =90g
Turmeric 3oz =90g
Black peppercorns 1oz=30g
White mustard seed 1oz=30g
Best Jamaica ginger 1oz=30g
Allspice 1/2oz=15g
Jessen Cardomoms 1/2oz (note 1) =15g
Cummin seed 1/4oz =7.5g
Fenngreck seed 1/4oz (note 2)=7.5g
Cayenne pepper 1/4oz=7.5g

Be sure all ingredients are fresh and of the best quality. Finely powder the whole, mix and sift. Keep closely corked and dry. This mixture will make a dozen curries. This suscitating oriental stimulant was brought to Great Britain (in my Great Aunts case, Guernsey and Wiltshire) from India and was passed among those of us families whose delight was gastronomy.

(1) Elettana Ceramomum the seeds of a plant native to the East Indies. Also called Grains of Paradise. Useful in confectionary and curries

(2) Fenngreck - Trigonella Faenum Graecum. A leguminous plant.

 N.B.

(1) There has been a lot of discussion about Jessen Cardomom, so in the end I followed my intuition and used brown (black) cardamom pods as I had used these with success for a Mamta curry recipe in the past.

(2) These are Methi seeds, if buying in an Indian or Asian store.

I have done some conversion and then reduced the quantities to suit the curry that I was making (I used an online programme for the weight to teaspoon conversion factor) and 10% of the original quantity, I mean I didn’t want 330g of curry powder, I already have a jar full of homemade Garam Masala to Mamtas recipe.
For those that it is of interest, this is the conversion tool I used, it is American so will be of use when doing cups to metric etc.

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/cooking-conversions/calc.aspx

I rounded up and down as I decided that the exact quantities would never have been adhered to in the good old Raj and as this curry powder seems to be for a whole platoon plus the cooks, Punka Wallas and Lady folks as well, a few grains here or there will not make a dammed bit of difference.

 My conversion table for the lamb curry.

spice	grammes	tsp conversion	10%	grammes	I used tsp
Coriander	90,00	42,86	4,286	9	4
Tumeric	90,00	35,00	3,5	9	3,5
Black pepper corns	30,00	15,79	1,579	3	1,75
White mustard seeds	30,00	9,10	0,91	3	1
Ginger root (dried)	30,00	16,67	1,667	3	1,75
All spice (piment)	15,00	7,90	0,79	1,5	0,75
Jessen cardomom (I used the brown cardomom)	15,00	6,00	0,6	1,5	0.5
Cumin seeds	7,50	3,50	0,35	0,75	0,5
Fengrek seeds (methi seeds)	7,50	3,50	0,35	0,75	0,5
Cayanne Pepper	7,50	1,42	0,142	0,75	0,5
	322,50			32,25

I used ready ground Turmeric and Cayenne pepper, the rest were seeds, berries and the dry ginger was rough chopped (it didn’t say on the packet its place of origin).  I put the whole seeds, berries and ginger into a pestle and mortar and crushed quite fine.

I then ground it in an old coffee mill that I keep especially for this purpose. (The coffee tastes a little strange if ground in it).

The remainder of the ingredients for the Lamb Curry:

1kg of lamb, I used chops and ribs as it is always cheap from my Turkish butcheress

2 largish onions sliced into rings

3 cloves of garlic (minced)
2,5 cm/sq piece of ginger (grated)
3 Kafir lime leaves chopped (I buy mine frozen, so always have some at hand)
2 sprigs of Rosemary (not really Indian, but I like it with my lamb)
Zest from 1 bio-lemon
5 carrots sliced
5 potatoes diced
½ red capsicum diced (that was all I had left)
1 yellow capsicum diced
10 mushrooms cut into quarters

small handful of fresh coriander leaves and stalks

2 desert spoons of oil for frying

1 tin of diced tomatoes

some chopped gari (japanese sweet ginger, that I had left over)

150ml of full fat yoghurt (Greek)

Fry the onions over a low heat until soft and just colouring, add the ginger and garlic and allow to soften without burning, add the curry powder and mix into the onion mixture.

Put the lamb into a bowl, salt and pepper and add the Rosemary leaves, add the onion mixture to the lamb and mix so that the pieces are covered.

Transfer to the base of the Slow Cooker.

Then add all of the other ingredients, pour in 400ml of stock, I only had beef, but veal, chicken, vegetable or best lamb will do. Give it a stir

Turn onto high, set the timer (I originally set it for 5 hours, but mine goes to a warm hold function and was in a good 8 hours), no setting on, no burning.

Serve with plain basmati steamed rice (I have one of those clever little rice steamers that takes all of the guess work out of cooking rice) not that I ever had any problems using the absorption method, but as I have it I may as well use it.

The curry was very tasty, very tasty indeed; it wasn’t at all hot, which was to be expected due to the small quantity of chilli (cayenne) powder. But though this will not be for the Friday night blow your head off after 10 pints of Lager crowd, it is a true curry, it is aromatic, tasty and will go down well with those that are not of the Vindaloo or Madras brigade. If making it for myself or others that I know, I would double the Cayenne or even put a few fresh chillies into the main curry with the rest of the vegetables.

But it got a top ten from me and as I have frozen a couple of large portions for next weekend, I shall also get a second opinion.

Thank you Great Aunt Aline