A mutton curry

Last updated: $Date: 2006/11/05 02:00:55 $

This is a mutton curry recipe I found in "Singapore Food" by Wendy Hutton. I'm copying it here because I've deviated from the original in a number of ways. In particular, it uses about double the quantity of spices. Why do Western books recommend so few spices? This is no criticism of Wendy Hutton: other recipe books recommend as little as a tenth of the correct quantity of spices.

Ingredients

quantity  ingredient  step 
40 ml (2 tablespoons)  coriander seeds  1
20 ml (1 tablespoon)  cumminseed  1
10 ml (2 teaspoons)  fennel seed  1
3 cm  cinnamon stick  1
cloves  1
5 ml (1 teaspoon)  black peppercorns  1
1/8  nutmeg  1
20 ml (1 tablespoon)  turmeric  1
30 ml (1½ tablespoon)  hot chili powder  1
300 g  onions  2
cloves garlic  2
3 cm  ginger  2
500 g  mutton  3
200 ml (½ can)  coconut milk  4
40 ml (2 tablespoons)  tamarind concentrate  4

Preparation

  1. Bake the whole spices in the oven at 50° for about 10 minutes to dry them out (otherwise they will clog up the grinder). Grind in a spice grinder. If any are already powdered spices, add them now. Mix with enough water to make a thick paste.
  2. Finely mince the onions, ginger and garlic. Fry in oil until the paste starts to dry out (the oil will separate), about 3 minutes.
  3. Add the spice paste and mix well. Cook for another 3 or 4 minutes.
  4. Add the meat and mix in well. Add water to cover and 1½ teaspoons of salt. Bring to the boil and simmer until nearly cooked, which can be a long time (up to 1½ hours).
  5. Add the coconut milk and tamarind paste and cook for another 10 minutes.

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