Name: Aromatic Lamb
Yield: Serves 10–12
Ingredients: 15 cardamom pods, crushed and podded; ⅓ cup palm sugar; ¼ cup fish sauce; 1 cinnamon stick; 2 cans tinned tomatoes; 1 tsp cumin seeds; 1 tsp coriander seeds; 9 cm finger of ginger, peeled and sliced; 1½ cup roughly sliced coriander, stems and leaves; 1 large red chilli, de-seeded and roughly chopped; 12 garlic cloves, crushed; chopped coriander/micro leaves for garnish; 3 tbsp lime juice; 1 cup chicken stock; ½ cup olive oil; ½ tsp sweet paprika; 3 spring onions, chopped; 1 tsp white peppercorns; 3 tsp flaked sea salt; 40 g fresh turmeric (roughly 2 skinny fingers) or 2 tsp ground turmeric; salt and white pepper to taste; 3 kg lamb shoulder, ideally cut by your butcher into 80 g pieces; 2 bay leaves; 2 sticks of celery; 3 large onions, chopped; 3 tbsp oil; 4 tsp fennel seeds; 2 carrots, peeled and cut into wedges

Preparation info

Serves
10–12

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Set a Table

By Karen Dudley

Published 2018

About

Everyone needs a solid lamb casserole in their repertoire. This one is dependably aromatic, interesting and all-round pleasing. I hope it will become one of your standards if you don’t have one already. All you’ll need on the side is rice or couscous and the simplest salad. Here’s the real gift: make it the day before at your leisure. You need to make a paste, brown the meat, make a base of vegetables and spices and add the meat, tomatoes, stock, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. See?