Lamb bhuna

hotel style lamb bhuna in a kadai from above.

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4.77 from 13 votes

Lamb bhuna - Indian hotel style

Lamb bhuna done hotel style delivers a seriously tasty curry.

Prep Time10

Cook Time15

Pre-cook your lamb1 20

Total Time1 50

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: lamb bhuna, lamb bhuna curry

Servings:

Calories: 783kcal

Author: romain | glebekitchen

Ingredients

Pre-cook your lamb

12 oz lamb I like shoulder best. Cut into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces.
1 tsp curry powder or mix powder if you prefer
1 tsp kosher salt - you want fairly salty to season the lamb. You will be discarding the cooking liquid. Most of it anyway.
1 cup chicken stock - enough to cover

The spice mix

2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder - you can get this at your Indian grocer
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp kashmiri chili powder
1 tsp kasoor methi - dried fenugreek leaves
1/2 tsp kosher salt

4 tbsp vegetable oil - any neutral oil is fine.
1/2 onion - coarsely chopped
2 green chilies - jwala chilies, seeded and diced.
2 tbsp cilantro stems and leaves - finely diced
1 tbsp garlic ginger paste - recipe link below
the spice mix from above
1 cup Indian hotel curry gravy - recipe link below
1/2 cup makhani gravy - recipe link below. Without the butter or cream. I use the cashew free version.
the pre-cooked lamb
1/2 tsp tamarind paste - or tamarind pulp if you make it yourself.
1/2 tsp jaggery or brown sugar
3-4 cherry tomatoes halved

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Do your prep

Pre-cook the lamb.
Make your spice mix. Chop your green chilies and onion. Mince the cilantro.

Pre-cook the lamb

Add the lamb, curry powder, salt and chicken stock to a saucepan. You want enough stock to fully cover the lamb. 1 cup is a guess. I don't know how big your sauce pan is. Try to pick one that isn't way too big.
Bring to a simmer. Cover. Cook until the lamb is tender. Keep an eye on the liquid level. You want the lamb submerged the whole time. This should take somewhere around an hour for lamb shoulder. Depends on how big your lamb chunks are. Also depends on the lamb. You are making stew. It's done when it's done I'm afraid.
Drain. Set the lamb aside. You can do this the day before if you'd like. You can also use this stock to dilute your final curry if you like. No sense wasting flavour. It's pretty salty though so you need to roll back on the salt in the spice mix and season to taste at the end. Maybe drop the salt to 1/3 tsp and tweak if needed.

Make the lamb bhuna

Heat the oil in a medium sized frying pan until the oil just starts to shimmer.
Add the chopped onion. Cook until it just starts to colour up.
Mix in the cilantro and green chilies. Cook for another 30 seconds or so.
Stir in the garlic ginger paste. Gently fry until the garlic ginger paste stops sputtering. This is the only messy step.
Turn your heat down to medium low and add your spice mix. You want to fry the spices in the oil. This is why it's important not to skimp on the oil. The oil helps keep the spices from sticking and burning (really bad). You are also making spiced oil here and that spiced oil will carry flavour into every bite (really good).
Add the Indian hotel and makhani curry gravy. Stir it really well to get the oil to combine with the curry gravy. You want everything mixed together at this point. Bring to a simmer.
Add the tamarind paste, the sugar and the lamb.
Cover loosely and cook for about 5 minutes.
If the sauce looks a little too thick for your taste at this point (technically this is supposed to be a thick curry) add enough water or some of the leftover lamb stock. If you use the lamb stock remember to watch your salt levels. Bring back to a gentle simmer. Cook for another two or three minutes. You want that lamb flavour to infuse the sauce.
Add the cherry tomatoes and cook until they are just warmed through.
Serve with rice or Indian flatbread. I like a tarka dal or chana masala on the side. But I always like a tarka dal or a chana masala on the side so I am hopelessly biased here.

Notes

Make your Indian hotel curry gravy ahead of time. It takes time to make so think about doing it the day before.

You can swap out passata for the makhani gravy/tomato masala but it's not quite the same.

For maximum flavour you should consider making your garlic ginger paste from scratch.

Chicken bhuna

If you want to make this with chicken you can add raw chicken thighs in place of the lamb. Nestle the chicken into the sauce and cook for about 5 minutes on one side. Flip the pieces and continue cooking until you get an internal temp of 170F. This should take another 8 minutes or so.

The chicken will throw a fair bit of liquid as it cooks (lots of flavour in that liquid) so the curry will be a bit runnier. If you like a runny curry cover the pan when you cook. If you want it thicker leave the cover off to let some of the liquid evaporate.

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