I’ve made this curry 3 weeks in a row now. Partly because I was perfecting the recipe and partly because it’s delicious and comforting. The lamb is super tender and the eggplant is just starting to collapse into the sauce making it creamy and delicious. You need to stock your freezer with it now.

You all know that I don’t cook a heap of red meat at home. I mostly eat seafood, vegetarian protein sources and chicken but every now and then I have a craving for something like this. The meat is super tender and cooking it for longer like this apparently makes it easier to digest. Plus there’s actually way more vegetables in this curry than meat and that’s how it should be. I love recipes like this that make the most of a smaller amount of meat.

I’ve been serving this with green fried ‘rice’ which is this delicious cauliflower and broccoli ‘rice’ that I’ll share the recipe for tomorrow. That way I’m getting a couple more serves of vegetables and varieties into my meal which is my main aim at the moment.

You could definitely just serve it with steamed rice and maybe some steamed broccoli on the side. The sauce is rich and flavoursome so you’ll want something to soak up all that flavour.

I love cooking nuts in curry like this, their texture is no longer raw but softer than roasted nuts… I dunno it’s just good and a yummy texture contrast with the tender lamb and soft eggplant. Do it.

It freezes super well too so if you’re like me and not likely to eat red meat two times in a week, freeze your leftovers and have them at another time.

Serve 4 generously

Ingredients

400g lamb, (I used shank meat but any cut suited to slow cooking will be fine) chopped into bite sized pieces

2 eggplants skin on and chopped into bite sized pieces (approx 8 cups)

2 Tbs Garam masala

2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 Tbs cumin seeds

1 tsp salt

2 Tbs olive oil

1/2 cup finely sliced spring onion (or 1/2 a brown onion) + extra for serving

2 Tbs finely chopped coriander root and stalk

2 tsp freshly grated ginger

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 x 400g can of (organic BPA free) tomatoes

1 x 400ml can of coconut milk

400ml water (or bone broth if you have it)

1/3 cup whole natural almonds

4 cups baby spinach

1/4 cup coriander leaves and lime juice to serve

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Put a large, deep sided oven proof fry pan or similar with a fitted lid on a medium heat.

Mix together spices. In a medium bowl sprinkle the lamb with 1/2 the spice mix and toss to coat. In a large bowl sprinkle the eggplant with the spice mix and toss to coat.

Put a couple of tsps of the olive oil in the frying pan and once hot add the lamb. Brown on all sides then remove from the pan. Add a little more oil if needed and then cook the eggplant in batches letting it get a little colour on each side and just start to soften. A few minutes per bathc only. If the bottom of the pan is getting fry just add some water and use a wooden spoon to lift all the flavoursome bits of the bottom of the pan and coat the eggplant. Remove from the eggplant pan. Set aside.

Add the remaining oil and then add the onion, coriander stalk, ginger and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes until the onion has started to soften. Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes until the tomatoes have reduced just slightly. Add the coconut milk and stir to combine then add the water/bone broth.

Add the meat, eggplant and almonds and bring to a boil. Place a lid on the pan and transfer to the oven. Cook for 45 minutes – 1 hour or until the lamb is tender and the eggplant is collapsing into the sauce. The sauce should be rich and dark.

Serve scattered with spring onion and coriander leaves.

HH. x