My brother got back late from Spain last night after having to get his son from Barcelona, where he had gone on a school trip, but developed appendicitis, and had his appendix removed in a Barca hostpital. All went well, and he is home at last, stable but stapled! Thank goodness for travel insurance, although I had to arrange flights out!

To get my brother back into UK mood, I cooked him a lamb korma. I bought some lamb shoulder from my usual Persian butchers, (who were particularly nice today) and I found some Bengali limes from the stall I buy my fresh herbs from.

Lapis' lamb korma:

Browned three lamb shoulders joints in bacon fat.

Dusted liberally with compounded hing powder.

Macerated together two red sweet peppers, a little water and the husks of about 6 black cardamoms. Pounded the seeds to a powder.

Added powdered coriander and cumin seeds, and some chilli powder.

Then added the peppers, and some black pepper powder.

Heated in a pan, and added water til it reached half way up the meat.

Put a lid on, and simmered for 1.3 hours, shaking (the pan) a few times to rotate the meat.

Lifted out the meat, and de-boned it (brother does not like meat on the bone).

Put meat back in pan, and continued to simmer, without a lid to reduce the volume of liquid.

Added half teaspoon of saffron.

Cooked plain rice (half/half basmati and Thai glutinous) with the peel of half a Bengali lime. Macerated rest of lime ith a little water, and added fluid to the rice, once cooked.

Verdict. Excellent, so I thought I would share. Suggest only 1/4 teaspoon of saffron should be added, mine was old, but hadn't lost its pungency, it turned out!!

Thanks for sharing the recipe Lapis. I was thinking, "that is a lot of saffron", until I reached the end your post :-)!