Easy Lamb Curry – homemade from scratch

Forget Korma, Jalfrezi, Madras. Try this easy lamb curry recipe for the tastiest lamb curry ever. It’s packed with spices for great flavour and enough chilli to give it heat without too much of a bite. It’s also loaded with veggies, which makes it an ideal one-pan meal.

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Easy Lamb Curry

We love a good lamb curry. Left to himself, Graham would eat it every night of the week. In fact, the very first dish he ever cooked for me was a lamb curry. (Did I mention that lamb is his favourite meat? He loves my lamb curry in pita and South African bunny chow)

To be honest it didn’t taste too bad. What I liked about it was that he’d included potatoes and carrots in the same pan, which went really well with the flavour of the curry. The only drawback was that he’d used a jar of instant sauce.

Made from scratch

We’ve come a long way since those days. I’ve introduced him to the art of making a curry from scratch, and I think between us, we’ve come up with a pretty good tasting lamb curry.

What I like about this lamb curry is that it’s not too hot. There is a lot of flavour from the combination of spices with just the right amount of heat (for my taste). If you prefer a spicier curry, it is easy to adjust the heat – just adjust the amount of chilli flakes that you add.

There are quite a few spices in this lamb curry recipe (8 in all), but they are all readily available in the supermarket for under £1 each. And a little goes a long way. You will get at least 8 to 10 curry meals from the spices, so when you off-set the upfront cost of buying the spices, against buying a jar of ready-made curry sauce, this works out to be very economical. There is also no comparison when it comes to flavour. Homemade is always better, and this dish wins hands down.

The lamb curry virtually cooks itself. I’m all for making things easy in the kitchen. Once you’ve prepared the vegetables, all you have to do is fry the onions with the spices, brown the meat, add the tomatoes and veggies and leave it to simmer on the stove for 40 minutes while you get on with more important things (like relaxing with a glass of wine maybe?).

You don’t have to worry about over-cooking either. A little extra cooking time won’t hurt. The worst that can happen is that the potatoes might be a little bit soft. Also, the flavours improve on standing so you can also prepare it in advance and warm it up when you are ready to eat it. It freezes like a dream, so why not make a double quantity and freeze half for another meal.

Ingredients for easy lamb curry

You can get the complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making this easy lamb curry on the printable recipe card at the end of this post.

It takes about an hour and a half in total to prepare and cook this homemade lamb curry, but the prep time is less than half and hour. The rest of the time the curry just simmers away by itself.

How to make Lamb Curry

Prepare the lamb

Start by cutting up your lamb into 2 cm (1-inch) chunks.
You can buy your lamb ready cut up at the supermarket, but I like to buy a whole piece of lamb leg and cube it myself. That way, I’m sure that all the pieces are evenly sized, and I can cut away any bits of sinew or excess fat.

Peel and chop the vegetables

The onions, carrots and tomatoes should be approximately 1 cm (half inch) cubes and the potatoes a little larger. I find that carrots take a bit longer to cook than potatoes, so keeping the carrots smaller ensures that everything ends up being cooked at the same time.

Gather all the spices

Fry the onions and spices

• Pour about 1 tablespoon of olive oil into a large frying pan (use one that has a lid) and saute the onion gently until translucent. Do not allow them to brown. I find that if I keep them on a low heat, and cover with a lid (and giving an occasional stir), this takes about 5 minutes.
• I have included hot curry powder as an ingredient, but this is not strictly necessary. The combination of the rest of the spices and the chilli should provide sufficient heat and flavour. If you like a really spicy curry you can add the curry powder, otherwise just leave it out.
• Add all the spices to the onions and continue cooking, stirring continuously, until the onion is well-coated and the spices start to release their aroma.
• Remove the onions from the pan and set aside.

Brown the lamb

• Add another tablespoon of oil to the same frying pan, and the fry the lamb cubes over a medium heat, to brown and seal.
• Don’t overload the pan. Just brown a few pieces at a time, so that the pan keeps its heat and doesn’t draw moisture. You want a nice brown coating on the lamb. You don’t want it to boil in its own juices.

Return the onions to the pan and add the tomatoes

• Once the meat is all browned, tip it all back into the pan.
• Add the onions to the meat along with the chopped fresh tomatoes and 1 teaspoon of sugar.
• You can omit the sugar if you prefer. I always add a teaspoon of sugar to cooked tomatoes as it brings out the tomato flavour and reduces the tartness.
• Let this simmer until the tomatoes start to soften and release their moisture.
• Now pour in the tin of chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil

Add the root vegetables and season

• Add the potatoes and carrots.
• Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
• The mixture will be quite thick at this stage, and it may look as though it needs extra liquid. Don’t worry – as the tomatoes and other vegetables soften there will be plenty of liquid in the pan.
• Put the lid on the pan and allow to simmer for about 40 minutes.
• Check occasionally and top up with stock if necessary.
• Half-way through the cooking time, check the flavour and seasoning. As with any recipe you should check the taste as you go.
• For extra heat add a touch more chilli, and if you think it needs more salt you can add it now.
• If there is too much liquid in the dish, remove the lid or the final 10 minutes of simmering to allow some of the liquid to evaporate.

Serve and enjoy

• I like to serve lamb curry with a bowl of white rice and a side helping of peas.
• If you would prefer not to serve with rice, this lamb curry is delicious piled on top of a warmed, split pita bread. To warm pita bread just place it in a dry frying pan over a low heat for about one minute on each side.
• South Africans like to serve their curries with a sprinkling of coconut and a few slices of fresh banana, and dollop of chutney on top.

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Recipe – Easy Lamb Curry

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