Ground Lamb and French Lentil Curry

Last night's dinner was a big hit, so it seems like a good idea to write down the details. It's based on a Ground Beef Curry from Kenya, a recipe I found in Extending the Table. My ingredients have never quite matched the ones they request, so I kind of wing it. Here's how I made it last night:

Ground Lamb and French Lentil Curry

1 cup french lentils, simmered in 2 cups water until nearly soft (about 20 minutes ?)

1/2 pound lean ground lamb
5 small onions, cut in eighths (about 1 cup)
1 T or so butternut squash seed oil
5 cloves garlic
1 pint tomatoes, with liquid
1 tsp sambar powder
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground ginger
(optional) cayenne to taste1 tsp dried mint
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt

Break lamb into 1/2 inch chunks and saute with onions in oil until browned. Add garlic and curry powders and fry briefly, adding tomato juice as needed to prevent sticking. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 20 minutes or so to absorb liquid and blend flavors. Add additional seasoning to taste. Serve over rice.

We had this with a side dish of baked butternut squash; the sweetness of the squash was a nice complement to the savory curry.

Notes on Ingredients

• lamb -- Northlands used to have a deal where you could order a half or full lamb and have it cut to order. I would have pretty much the whole thing cut into chops and stew pieces and ground lamb, because I rarely cook roasts and steaks. I discovered that I absolutely love the extra-lean ground beef that you get if you make it from the shank or the shoulder, much better than I like the more meat that ground lamb is usually made from. They don't sell whole animals any more, but they will still put in a special order for me once in awhile (though I have to pay the steak/roast price, for obvious reasons.) I think I bought ten pounds of it, back in November, which will probably last us the better part of a year.
• onions -- These are the Stuttgarter onions that I grew that didn't size up very well. They're about an inch and a half in diameter.
• butternut squash seed oil -- We discovered this stuff when we did the locavore challenge back in September. It has a strong flavor reminiscent of toasted sesame oil. I used it last night to help unify the flavor of the curry with the butternut squash I served on the side.
• garlic -- also home grown.
• tomatoes -- I peel, chop, and stew my paste tomatoes, seeds & juice & all, and freeze them in pints. They get used in any recipe that calls for tomatoes, no matter what kind (though I do use dried tomatoes sometimes for variety.) In this recipe, the tomato juice substituted for the water called for in the original recipe.
• curries -- There are as many sambar powder and garam masala recipes as there are cooks in India; the ones I linked here look at least similar to what I do when I make mine (I don't make them often enough to have a standard recipe yet.) I leave out things I don't normally cook with, like the asafetida, and my sambar has coconut flakes in it, but those are just variations on a theme.

A Sampling of Menus

I'm starting to feel like something is missing without the detailed menus I recorded for the Locavore Challenge back in September. So here's an overview of some of the other meals we've eaten in the past week:

• (dinner) gypsy soup with corn bread
• (dinner) ground lamb patties, boiled potatoes, and mache salad
• (dinner) refried black bean flautas with salsa, fruit soup with ice cream
• (dinner) chicken sausage with sauerkraut, baked sweet potatoes
• (lunch) summer sausage and olive pate on rye crackers, sauerkraut
• (snack) sliced apples with peanut butter
• (school lunch) buffalo snack sticks, crackers, dried apples & peaches, cooked carrot
• (school lunch) leftover curry & rice, frozen blueberries, sliced jerusalem artichokes
• (breakfast) waffles with red currant syrup
• (breakfast) cereal with almond milk