Bhindi Gosht / Okra and Lamb Curry
Bhindi Gosht / Okra and Lamb Curry
Okra and Lamb Curry in English.
When I think of Pakistani cuisine, I think of Bhindi first, it is easily one of my favourite flavours. Here I am going to cook it with lamb.
There are a couple of slight variations on this where some people use tomato, I personally don’t ( unless I am cooking with beef ) because I want to maximise the okra flavour. I do add a lot of onions though as I think they compliment the okra nicely.
Depending on how much lamb you put in the flavours do complete so I personally would put in less meat. I was cooking for my son so I doubled up on the meat with this one. I also managed to overcook the lamb as you will see in the pictures. I will add a note in that section so you can avoid doing the same.
Ingredients
- 800 grams Bhindi Okra
- 2 large brown onions sliced
- 3-4 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 thumb ginger finely chopped
- 600 grams lamb diced
- 1 tsp paprika powder
- ½ tsp chilli powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 handful fresh coriander
- 1 tsp garam masala
Instructions
- The first step is to fry the okra, unfortunately you can’t get away from this step as otherwise the okra will be slimy.
- ( I wonder if you can grill them instead, might try that next time )
- Anyway, wash, dry, top and tail and chop up your okra into whatever size pieces you fancy. Just not to small – at least 1 centimetre wide and up to 3 is fine.
- Fry in oil on high in batches and put aside
- Roughly chop 1 of the onions. Sautee until translucent and then add the ginger and garlic. Fry for another 2-3 minutes.
- Next add the meat if you are using. I added around 650g of meat but that’s because I was cooking for my carnivorous son. I would recommend using half the weight in meat in relation to the okra – so around 250g-300g if you’re using 700-800g of okra.
- Throw in the paprika, chilli, salt, turmeric, coriander, cumin and cook the meat until its brown.
- I wouldn’t get too hung up on all the spices, just use what you have, this tastes just perfect with only the salt.
- At this point some people add a few chopped tomatoes, say 3-4 or half a can. I don’t but that’s personal preference. I probably would add tomatoes if I was using beef.
- Add water, around a small cup for every 300g of meat and bring to the boil.
- Now, this is where I went wrong, I pressure cooked the lamb for 30 minutes, overcooking it. That would have been fine if it was beef but lamb only needs around 10-15 minutes if using the pressure cooker.
- If you’re using a pressure cooker, lid once boiling and then turn down the heat once you hear the whistle. Wait 15 minutes for lamb and 30 minutes for beef.
- If not using a pressure cooker, just lid and simmer on low for double the amount of time.
- Once you carefully remove the lid you need to dry it out a little. As you can see in the picture, I have too much water left so I had to boil for another 15 minutes on high.
- Once you meat looks like this you can move to the next step. So not totally dry but it has a thicker sauce.
- Now throw in the pre-fried okra, another sliced onion and the chopped coriander.
- You can 1 tsp of garam masala at this stage even though I forgot to 🙂
- Lid and cook on low for another 15 minutes and you’re done.
- You can see, even if your meat isn’t completely tender in the earlier stage you are still cooking for another 30 minutes so it has plenty of time to tenderise.
- Enjoy with naan.