Dan Bites

Ground lamb was on sale at the store, so I picked a pound up and made this Indian-style curry with it. Usually, curry is made with chunks of meat, I improvised since ground lamb was cheaper.

First thing I did was make the meatballs. I put the lamb in a glass dish, sprinkled 1 teaspoon of ground cumin on top, then grated in 1/2 a red onion,  2 garlic cloves, and 1/2 inch of ginger. A little salt and pepper and I mixed it all together.

After letting the mixed meat sit for about 10 minutes I rolled it up into quarter-sized balls. I let them sit in the fridge to hold shape while I got the curry sauce ready.

For the curry I used 1 cup of coconut milk, 1 carrot rough chopped, 1/2 red onion rough chopped, 1 medium-sized yam skinned and diced, juice from 1 lime, 1/2 inch ginger chopped, 4 garlic cloves chopped, about 3 ounces of baby spinach, 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1 can of chickpeas, 1 teaspoon each of garam masala, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, and coriander, and the seeds from 4 cardamom pods.  There’s a big juicy orange bell pepper in the picture, but I decided not to use it for the curry.

With my pestle and mortar I ground up the coriander seeds and cardamom. I added the rest of the spices to this mixture.

I threw everything except for the yam, chickpeas, lime juice, and spinach into my blender and let her rip until I had a nice smooth sauce. I decided to add 1 tablespoon of flour while it was blending to help thicken it up while I cooked it.

I heated 1 tablespoon of ghee in a large skillet and browned the outside of the lamb balls. Once they got some color and I was sure they’d hold their shape I removed them with a slotted spoon leaving behind the ghee and lamb fat.

I poured in the curry sauce and let it come to a slow simmer for about 10 minutes to take the rawness from all of the veggies that were in it.

Then I added the diced yam, chickpeas, and meatballs. I let them cook in the curry for about 15 minutes to make sure the meatballs were cooked through and the yam not too hard. Just before taking the curry off the heat I added the spinach and mixed it in so that it wilted slightly. Then I turned off the heat and mixed in the lime juice while seasoning with salt and pepper.

I served it with white rice and garnished with some fresh cilantro.