Spicy lamb and chickpea curry
This dish was inspired by my brother in law who came back from a business trip to Tel Aviv with a number of bags of spices that as soon as you walked into their house, you could imagine what the souk markets would smell like with the aromas of the herbs and spices. Kai thought he would spice up Alice's culinary skills by buying these spices for her to add to her cooking. Unfortunately Alice wasn't interested and instead gave some to me and I came up with this recipe, which was a hit with the family.
Prep time:
(family of 4-5).
Ingredients
- 1kg lamb, diced (leg or shoulder)
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 1 red pepper, sliced
- 1 large courgette, grated
- 160g baby spinach
- 400g chickpeas
- 5 fresh tomatoes, chopped
- 5 tbsp ground blend of mixed spice (mix of ground cumin, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, ground nutmeg, allspice, cloves)
Method
- Add the mixed spice to the lamb with 2tbsp olive oil (add seasoning if you wish) and leave to the side.
- In a large casserole dish, add 3tbsp of olive oil over a medium heat and cook down the onions until they are really soft, this may take around 10 mins or so.
- Add the marinated lamb into the same casserole dish as the onions and brown the lamb. Then add the vegetables (courgette, red peppers and tomatoes) and gently cook for a couple of minutes.
- Add 100ml of water to the dish. If you wish to season your meal, this would be a good point to add some seasoning. Cover the dish with a lid and simmer on a low heat for 1 hour.
- After an hour of cooking, remove the lid and add the chickpeas and spinach. Simmer for another 20-30 minutes without the lid until the water has reduced and slowly thickens into a sauce. Note - the curry does not need to be reduced right down and it doesn’t matter if the sauce still remains watery.
Serve in an Onco bamboo bowl with some rice or couscous and a dollop of our cucumber dip.