Cooking For Engineers

[EngineeringProfessor]

How do I make "Indian Restaurant" lamb curry?

The recipe I have makes everything perfect, except the lamb does not have that "melt in your mouth" tenderness.

I cut up a pound or so of lamb (steaks, leg, etc.) into chunks.

I brown the chunks along with some onion.

I add a can of diced tomatoes, water and Patak's Extra Hot Curry paste.

Simmer the whole thing for about 20-30 minutes.

This recipe works great, smooth, tasty and spicy sauce, but the lamb does not come out tender--am I cooking too long, not long enough? Should I do something to the lamb first? Is it the cut of lamb I am using?

TIA

[cynicalb]

Hi EP,

Let's first make an assumption that you are using a cut of lamb that is conducive to braising (which is effectively what you are doing). That is, it has a fair amount of connective tissue, or collagen. Cuts like the shoulder, leg, cheaper steaks, etc. Not the ribs or the loin.

I think that you are not cooking it long enough. To effectively render high collagen containing cuts nice and tender, you have to maintain a temperature near the boiling point of water for an extended period of time. Thus, the meat should be in excess of 200F for at least an hour and a half. This helps dissolve the collagen and creat a tender result. Also, to make sure that you have the proper environment while braising, make sure the pot that you are cooking it in is covered. This will maintain the temperature needed, reduce moisture loss, and require little heat input.

If you have a copy, or can get a copy, please refer to "On Food and Cooking", 1984, p. 120-121.

Try this out and let us know how it works.

Best Regards,

cynicalb

[EngineeringProfessor]

[Mamafishy]

Please remember that it may not even be a lamb dish you were trying to duplicate- SOME restaurants are not adverse to using cuts of goat meat and calling it lamb. Goat meat in my experience can be much more tender and gelatinous and less gamey than lamb. Also, if the restaurant meat was marinated a while in a yoghurt-based or acid-containing marinade or even one containing a meat tenderiser, it would also end up a very different texture.

[EngineeringProfessor]

[cynicalb]

[EngineeringProfessor]

Once again I made Lamb Curry and once again it came out excellent.

I have discovered that the recipe works fine with the absolutely cheapest lamb cuts imaginable. This makes sense given that the recipe was most likely developed in a simmering stewpot over an open fire rather than destined for the Maharajah's table--assuming the diners were Muslim as opposed to Hindi or Buddhist. In any event, the Maharajah would appreciate this dish.

[techiecowboy]

Workable design.....Another thing that helps cook the meat is adding the tomate later in the recipe. This way the acid in the tomato does not stop the tenderizing action till the end...But do let it simmer a bit after adding the tomate otherwise you will get the raw tomate flavor.
Also, marinate the meat in pretty much all the spices including salt and 1/4 of oil that you use in the recipe, helps coat the spices all over better and the salts heps in tenderizing... Remember salts helps you cook.

[watt]

the meat served as 'mutton' in India is goat, there are far more goats than sheep in India, so mutton/lamb dishes really are meant to be goat dishes, and flavoured accordingly. (Hindus eat goat as well as Muslims!) BTW, the beef sold in India is water buffalo except in Kerala, where it is pukka beef.

If you cut your meat up into small chunks, then either make a quick fry dish (with costlier cuts) or cook cheaper cuts covered with much water, as a stew. If the meat is kept whole (on the bone), cook as a braise, in a little water and fat, both at lower temperatures to reduce the shrinkage of the meat which will become tough and tasteless at higher temperatures.

Examples of 'stews' are vindaloo, dhansak and dalcha, braises are kormas, including rogan josh and dopiaz.

just thoughts
Watt