Massaman Lamb Curry

Firstly, an apology - I promised to have this post up a few days ago, but just didn't find the time. So, here it is, in a condensed form of sorts: Massaman Lamb Curry. Now I'm not gong to go into too much detail about the recipe, since you can easily find it on Waitrose's website.

Now then, the obligatory ingredients shot:


Seeing as I didn't want to OD completely on the curry and needing some veg, I also decided to stir-fry some peppers and asparagus, quite simply with a little sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Unfortunately, I had to work later than expected that night and had to make do with a Tesco Local, so I could get the ready prepared diced lamb the recipe called for - a couple of leg steaks, a sharp knife and some inconvenience later, here is the resulting fat-trimmed, cubed lamb:



Mmmmm. Meaty goodness. Now as called for I fried up the chopped onion and mixed in the paste - the paste smelled amazing by the way, like concentrated spices. Then I threw in the lamb and stired it all together until everything was coated evenly in the paste.



At this point John yelled out "that's smells great! I'm hungry, when is it ready?". I noted disappointment when I said at least an hour and a half to go yet. Hey, these things take time! After I cooked the lamb this way for about 6 minutes I poured in the stock and (low fat!) coconut milk, personally I think the recipe calls for a little too much since the aroma was overwhemlingly coconut rather than curry.


Now since this has an hour of simmering to go I prepared the peppers and asparagus for stir frying, I prefer slicing my peppers finely and stir-frying as little as possible so they're still crunchy:


I don't know about any one else, but I adore riots of colour in cooking. Peppers (ahem, capsicums) are a fantastic way to achieve this since they come in such a wide variety of colours. In this case I used the standard red and orange, but there are also green, yellow and even purple peppers available. I must admit for a long time I disliked raw pepper a great deal, but with the impending weight loss I had to go through about a year and a half ago I developed a liking for them. But back on topic, after about an hour of the Massaman slowly bubbling away I threw in the chopped potatoes and a little extra chili, since I prefer my food a bit more spicy. While the potato was softening up nicely I prepared some jasmine rice and stir-fried the prepared vegetables:


Once everything was ready and the peanuts where stirred through the curry, I served each part of the dish in separate bowls, here is the final plating before the other half scrapped away the last of the curry:



Overall, I think my first at-home attempt of massaman curry went quite nicely. Though next time I'll use less coconut milk, a little more paste and throw in a few more chilies.