Lamb madras. Done Indian hotel style. It’s one of the big ones. Truly great. At least for me. Madras is king to jalfrezi’s queen.
So I had to get this one right. And I think I did. Bold claim. I know. But it’s good. Try it for yourself.
It’s glebekitchen style though. No pre-conceptions. Just make it the best I can. So maybe a little different than what you’re used to. Not a lot different. But different. In a good way.
Madras was in South India
I know. Lamb madras isn’t a real Indian dish. Madras isn’t even a place anymore. It’s Chennai now.
Nobody makes it in India. It’s a British invention. Like chicken tikka masala. That’s OK. Cooking evolves. Crosses borders.
It’s actually better than OK. It’s progress. Without progress we’d all still be eating what our grandparents ate. I’ve seen pictures. It wasn’t pretty.
There’s a story here. Or a legend. Not sure which. Not important really. It’s fun either way. The story goes like this.
About a hundred years ago some enterprising soul had an idea. A semi-random mix of Indian spices. Called it Madras curry powder.
They put it up for sale in a shop on Leicester Square. It sparked a revolution. The UK curry revolution.
I’m putting the south Indian back into lamb madras. Why not? I like coconut oil. So a bit of that goes into this version.
And tamarind. For that hint of sour. Instead of lemon juice. Not conventional. But tasty. So I’m good with it.
And I’m serving it with parathas. A bite of this madras curry wrapped up in a bit of paratha? Heaven.
Chili pickle gives this lamb madras something special
Lagniappe. That’s a Louisiana French term. It means a little something extra. I love that word. It defines glebekitchen. What I’m always looking for.
Chili pickle is the lagniappe in this lamb madras. It’s a small thing. But a big thing.
Indian chili pickle is magic in a jar. It is very hard to go wrong adding it to any curry. And it works well here.
You can pick just about any chili pickle here. It’s a flavour boost. Not the star. This isn’t naga chili madras curry. You want that wonderful pickle flavour. But not too much of it.
Full disclosure. It can get spicy. Use naga pickle and it could get really spicy. Crazy tasty. But spicy.
If it gets out of control add more coconut milk. That should help tame the fire. A bit anyway.
This is hotel style lamb madras
This is a different take on restaurant style cooking. It’s not what you know. There is no curry base. Not the way you think about it anyway.
This is hotel style. Based on Indian hotel curry gravy. Think Indian haute cuisine. Mother sauces. The way it used to be. The way it probably still is at the best Indian restaurants.
I’m going back to fundamentals here. Pulling out all the stops. And I’m hoping you will follow.
This is not your local takeaway lamb madras. This is madras done to the max. May seem crazy to you. But sometimes you just need to make a leap of faith. It is so worth it.
Lamb madras – Indian hotel style
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.
- 1 cup chicken stock – enough to cover
The spice mix
- 1 tsp Indian restaurant spice mix – recipe link below
- 2 tsp madras curry powder – you can get this at your Indian grocer
- 1 tsp kashmiri chili powder
- 1 tsp kasoor methi – dried fenugreek leaves
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
lamb madras
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil – any neutral oil is fine. I actually like a mix of conconut oil and vegetable oil (50/50) for this curry. Up to you!
- 1 2 inch cassia bark
- 2 tbsp minced shallot or red onion
- 1 tbsp garlic ginger paste – recipe link below
- the spice mix from above
- 1 cup Indian hotel curry gravy – diluted with 1/4 cup of water – recipe link below.
- the pre-cooked lamb
- 3 tbsp coconut milk
- 1/3 tsp tamarind paste – or tamarind pulp if you make it yourself.
- 1/4-1/2 tsp chili pickle – depending on which pickle you use this can make it quite hot. But the pickle really adds the final bit of wow.
Instructions
Do your prep
- Make your spice mix. Pre-cook the lamb.
- DIlute your curry gravy with 1/4 cup of water (the same 1/4 as in the ingredient list – don't dilute it twice). You need to dilute it because the lamb is going in pre-cooked. That probably doesn't make sense to you if you haven't made a chicken hotel curry yet. Just do it. It will work out.
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. Cook until the lamb is tender. 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. Discard the stock (it will be very salty) and set the lamb aside. You can do this the day before if you'd like.
Make the lamb madras
- Heat the oil in a medium sized frying pan until the oil just starts to shimmer.
- Add the cassia bark. You should see little bubbles forming around it. Cook for about 30 seconds.
- Add the diced shallots. Cook until they just start to colour up.
- 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. This is why you added 3 tablespoons of oil. You really want to fry your spices in the oil. Skimp on the oil and you risk your spices sticking or worse, burning. If your spices burn here you are starting over. No way around this.
- Add the Indian hotel 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 cconut milk and the lamb.
- Cover loosely and cook for about 5 minutes.
- Taste the curry. If you can take the heat, add the chili pickle. A little goes a long way but it really makes a difference in flavour too.
- If the sauce looks a little thick at this point add a bit of water and bring back to a gentle simmer. Cook for another two or three minutes. You want some of the lamb flavour to infuse the sauce.
- 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.
Hey Romain, I’m about to make a Chicken Madras Hotel Style for twelve I notice when you look at the recipe for two it says dilute the curry gravy with 1/4 cup water, when I alter the recipe to 12 I notice it says 6 cups of gravy diluted with 1/4 cup of water!! Is the 1/4 cup per every two servings of curry gravy or do I add 1 1/2 cups of water to dilute 6 cups of gravy!!
Clearly that’s a problem with the scaling. Yes , you are absolutely correct. Scale the water. The goal is to get a restaurant sauce consistency so add until you get where you need to be.
Hey Romain, could I make this for up to 10 people just by increasing quantities. I know you cannot do this when cooking Restaurant style recipes..
Yes. That’s one of the wonderful things about this style. I haven’t yet tried really scaling it up 5x though. You might think about 2 batches?
Hi Romain, sorry, this is copied from the lamb Madras recipe, notist I asked it there instead of here….
Hi, I love your curry recipes , they go down a treat at home, I’m about to make this new curry base, just one question, do you also blend the cassia bark ? I have never used this before, having just had it delivered, it looks to be very “woody” excuse the pun lol. Thanks in advance.
I mean I asked it in your curry base recipe, it’s a cinnamon stick there, it’s cassia bark here.
You blend the whole spices into the hotel style curry gravy. You do not blend the actual hotel curry recipes at all. Whole spices in the curry recipes are meant to be eaten around or removed.
Romain I just made your hotel style curry gravy last night. It took 2.5 hours but I’m so excited about this labour of love!
My husband and I have been becoming more vegetarian over the last few years to lessen our impact on the planet and I’m hoping and praying you have some suggestions as to how we would adapt these hotel style curries with vegetables/eggs/paneer/meat substitutes? (I also want to be able to impress my Indian veggie family members when this pandemic allows me to finally see them.) I feel like just straight swapping meat for veggies won’t work.
Help please!!
I haven’t played with vegetarian options yet for hotel style curries so no guarantees. These are untested ideas that I know work with the restaurant dishes here.
For anything where the chicken or meat is pre-cooked – like this one – you can just replace with chickpeas directly. Paneer would probably work as well although it would be very rich. Roasted eggplant would probably work as well. As would waxy, pre-cooked (maybe fried) potatoes. Or potatoes and spinach.
For anything that has uncooked chicken in it you will need to make up the liquid thrown by the chicken so add 3-4 tablespoons of water at the end (to get to a nice saucy consistency).
If you want to try vegetables, I would pre-cook them first. I have zero experience with meat substitutes so I can’t really comment on that.
Hope this helps!
Thank you,Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
This is my first Hotel style curry, cooked easily and tastes WOW! This is definitely not my last, I’m going to try them all. Oh, by the way did I say Thank you…?
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You’re welcome.
I’m delighted you are enjoying it. And thank you for putting a big smile on my face.
Oh, and by the way, did I mention you’re welcome:-)
Hi Romain,
Firstly I have been making your restaurant curries for a couple of months now and they are incredible!! I really like the way you explain and describe things, you have a great way!!
I have a quick question: I am taking on the Ceylon chicken hotel-style this weekend. I also want to make a madras sauce to go with a tandoori mixed grill. Could I use the Hotel style Lamb madras (but leave the lamb out) and double the ingredients to make more sauce?
Many thanks
Alex
Thank you for saying. That’s great to hear.
Yes, that’s the beauty of the hotel style. It scales perfectly. Dinner sounds amazing.
Hi Romain
Great Brilliant Delicious what more can I say the flavour and texture was spot on. I think the wife is in love with you. So the million dollar question is what’s next????
Ian
Hotel style Chettinad chicken curry coming soon!
Romain, that is one mean madras recipe there. Congratulationz, I have been searching for a madras recipe that even comes close to what I was usually served when living in England. Yours is the first and only one that passes the test!
Tomorrow I am going to make CTM with your hotel gravy. I figure if I dilute the gravy a bit more and precede it with passata for both the flavour and colour, it should work quite well.
This site (you) have revolutionized my curries. Ever in your debt!
I’m so glad to hear that! I’m working on a CTM recipe with the hotel gravy myself. We can compare notes!
My gosh, another great one! Love all your recipes, thank you!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
This looks delicious. I am going to try it this week. Pretty much every one of your recipes here have been a hit with my family.
Do you have any tips on what part of Lamb we should use for this dish? Any thoughts on Mutton vs Lamb?
For curries I always go for shoulder.
If, by mutton, you mean goat, then yes. That would be fabulous.
The Lamb looks really tasty, if you wanted to cook for 4 or 8 people, what parts of the recipe would I increase and by how my?
Thanks
Haven’t tried that yet. I think most of it would scale linearly except I would cut the spice mix by 25% or so and creep up on the tamarind and pickle.
Certainly this style of cooking scales better than regular Indian restaurant cooking as the gravy already has the Maillard flavours from browning the onions.
I have done a couple larger scale chicken curries with hotel gravy and they worked extremely well.
This lamb looks so good. I am looking forward to trying it. Do you make your own pickle? If not, is there a brand of pickle you look for? It is amazing to me that such a small amount for flavor this dish.
Thanks!
I use Pran chili pickle. It’s a naga based pickle so really hot. Any Indian red chili pickle works. It’s not intended as the main flavour but rather a little something extra. If you find you’d like more pickle flavour and can take the heat then go for it!
Hey Romain, do you ever use dalla pickle? My local Indian grocery store has it. It’s very vingery and so hot. Can’t find naga locally.
I’ve never tried dalla pickle. Now I’m going to have to find some to add to my already out of control Indian pickle collection:-)
Naga isn’t so vinegary but it is hot and has a really distinctive flavour.
Dalla pickle is not an Indian condiment so my guess is that shop is Nepali (My wife is Nepalese), it comes from Nepal and is completely different to Mr Naga and Pran Naga pickle, although it taste amazing.
To make a Naga curry you need Mr Naga you can buy it on eBay if you cant find it local, I found Pran Naga was nowhere near as good as the original, to hot and not enough flavour and I eat chilli’s with everything.
Ps: When I make my Naga with Mr Naga I use 2 tsps for a single curry the flavour is insane you will never look back.
Mr. Naga really is hard to beat!