Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Lamb Qorma!

Good morning and welcome back to Sunday Gravy!

As you read this, my ass is going to be in Indianapolis for tomorrow’s total solar eclipse. Yeah I got all bougie like that since I can finally afford to now. Also later on tonight I got pretty close to courtside seats for the Pacers and the Heat. Best friend from Jersey is driving to Indy to meet me there and we gonna go all out for this trip. I’ll have a “Boots on the Ground” post about this trip if all goes well so stay tuned for that.

We’ve got a real interesting, unique and dynamic creation for you today and an epic shitload of photos to get to as well.

Want an inspiration story for today’s meal?

One day a couple of weeks ago I woke up, made breakfast, got ready for work, hopped in the car and?

Forgot my motherfucking lunch at home.

I was so pissed. This was on a Thursday during my weekly vegetarian stretch. Fucking hell man.

Rather than getting too upset with myself I decided to use the opportunity to try something I had been meaning to try for a long time.

Back in my days of living in El Segundo I used to order food from this Indian place across the street from where we lived but I always wanted to try this one Pakastani/Indian place that’s real close to where I work. Their food is supposed to be dynamite.

It’s called Al Noor and it’s been featured on the Food Network and everything. Mostly because of their naan. Their garlic naan will make you cry garlicky tears of joy. 

They reside in a nondescript strip mall with an unassuming exterior but don’t let the appearance fool you. This place is a certified fucking food superstar.

Here I was, lunch-less at work and I was fucking starving. I ordered delivery to the front door of my building and the food arrived within 20 minutes. 

Friends. I ordered their lamb qorma, garlic naan and hummus. 

It was stupid delicious. One of those dishes were you’re making yummy noises with every bite you take. Rich brown onion gravy with succulent chunks of lamb followed by your dunking some of the naan into the gravy. 

I was hooked for life immediately. 

Also told myself “I’m gonna make this shit for Sunday Gravy” and look where we are right now. 

Away we go!

For the record lamb qorma can also be spelled lamb korma and upon doing a recipe search the results were all titled “lamb korma.”

Lamb (Q)Korma

recipe courtesy of Indianhealthyrecipes.com

1 to 1 1/4lbs lamb cut into chunks

1 cup of plain Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon of minced garlic/ginger – minced together

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of red Kashmiri chili powder

1 tablespoon of ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon of turmeric

1 tablespoon of green chili paste – we’ll get to that

Whole spices Include:

5 cloves

2″ piece of cinnamon stick

6 green cardamom pods

2 black cardamom pods

1/2 teaspoon of lightly crushed peppercorns

For cooking you will need:

2 large onions thinly sliced

3 tablespoons of ghee – we’ll get to that too

2 cups of hot water

Final spices for addition midway through cooking:

1/4 teaspoon of cardamom powder

1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg.

We begin preparation the day prior to meal service. First by making ghee. We’ve made a version of ghee before called niter kibbeh.

Niter kibbeh is a spiced ghee used in Ethiopian food. This one today is straight forward ghee.

Get your butter. Two sticks unsalted please. Cut into chunks.

This will go on a low simmer for 8-10 minutes. Skim the foam off as it cooks.

Let cool then pour through a coffee filter to collect the milk solids.

Which will in turn yield ghee.

Ghee can store at room temperature for weeks but can also be refrigerated for up to 4 months. Go ahead and cover and refrigerate since you won’t need this until the next day. Use the rest as you would butter or oil. It will have a much higher smoke point now that the milk solids are removed.

Next we’ll score our ass some fresh lamb.

Check out the bounty at my local meat store.

Yep. This store is incredible.

Part of the inspiration for our menu today was from a Christmas present that youngest right gave me. Check this out.

Take a look at what’s inside.

ALL of the Indian spices. You can enlarge that photo if you like. There are spices in here that my ass has never heard of. It does set the “Inspiration” factory in motion doesn’t it?

The cool thing about these jars, select the spices you will be using for the meal and then…

Those fuckers are magnetic and stick to the side of the fridge which just so happens to be directly next to the stove.

BAD. ASS!

We start our marinade for the lamb with the minced garlic and ginger.

We are essentially making a paste from the ginger and garlic.

Get your spices, whole and powdered, and your yogurt then mix together thoroughly.

Now about the green chili paste as mentioned above.

See?

That is green “chilli” paste. Love the additional “L” in there. As I was browsing through several recipes for our dish today I even found one that said to use a green “Chilly.” Not making fun over here it was mildly amusing is all.

This green “chilli” paste is dynamite though. Very obviously made from green chilies – think Hatch chilies – this shit has a bite to it. Oh, I’m gonna fuck around with this shit in the future “Bullee Dat!”

Let’s go ahead and take a gander at our lamb haul from the meat store.

One leg and one little fatty chop just because I had to.

Cube it up.

Place it in a one gallon zip-top bag and then add in the marinade.

Now sock it away in the fridge to rest overnight.

Don’t throw away those bones! That shit wasn’t cheap.

How about we make a stock out of them?

Sound good?

Next day while the marinated lamb is coming up to temp let’s start getting after the naan.

Proof some yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water along with the sugar.

Then we add the flour, oil, salt and yogurt.

Attach the hook.

Knead for 10 minutes.

Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let proof for an hour. Then shape them into 8 little naan balls.

Now let’s get busy with the lamb korma while the dough is rising.

You will need a metric shit-ton of onions. Three whole onions in fact.

Go ahead and melt the ghee.

Get them onions in there.

These were supposed to cook until almost fried, or to a lovely golden brown. Guess I fucked this part up because after 10 minutes all they had done was sweated out a whole lot of onion sweat.

Yeah fuck it. Let’s go ahead and blend them up anyway.

Blend it up!

Yeah, that ain’t golden brown.

Next take the lamb, marinade and all, and get cooking. Use the same skillet that we cooked the onions in.

We’re going to cover this and simmer for 30 minutes. Now get your oven heated to 325.

After 30 minutes we add the onion mixture and 2 cups of water. Stir thoroughly then transfer everything to an oven safe baking dish. Let cook for about an hour.

After the hour is up we add in the freshly ground cardamom and nutmeg.

Only we’re doing these freshly ground.

First the cardamom. I used about 3 green pods and 3 black pods and ground them together.

I had no idea that cardamom smelled this fragrant. That’s on me for only using ground cardamom in the past.

Nutmeg next.

Remove the baking dish from the oven and sir in the nutmeg and cardamom.

And back into the oven for the last hour of cooking.

Don’t worry. That casserole dish always washes clean. Had the goddamn thing forever.

This is supposed to rest for at least an hour or two for proper flavor mingle-age. Shit, probably should have served this the next day. But, I didn’t.

Fuck it let’s finish cooking our naan.

Roll ’em up. Now heat up your cast iron skillet with a small dab of oil.

Slap that bastard in there.

Flip it over and toast the other side.

Repeat until all of the doughballs have been cooked.

After all of the goddamn work I’ve put in today better fucking believe I’m using store bought hummus. My ass was worn out.

You can serve the lamb over rice too.

I just wanted some hummus, lamb and naan so I served it just like this.

That naan was and continues to be awesome. Can’t go wrong with the store bought hummus.

The lamb? It didn’t blow me away. The lamb was incredibly tender and succulent but considering the sheer amount of spices I added here, it was fairly tame. I expected more life and a lot more fire. I’m pretty sure the onions not being browned was a major key here. Of course after I re-read the recipe the cooks notes said you can also use the dried onions from the can. You know, the green bean casserole shit?

Now they fucking tell me.

This was a very good dinner and just a perfect tenderness to the lamb but I was expecting it to be a lot more dynamic than it turned out.

Shit.

I WILL give this recipe another try, especially since I’m just about wallowing in Indian spices.

A quite tasty meal but had slightly higher hopes.

We can build on this!

Thanks for spending part of your Sunday Morning reading. Couldn’t do this without you.

We’ll see you again next Sunday.

PEACE!

FYI – I will be on vacation next week but we’ll have a special guest fill in with a non-food related post. Do enjoy.