African Curry

Ok I will admit it, I don't make my own curry paste. You are now free to tut away to yourself.

Ive tried, I promise, it just never seems to have the correct depth of flavour I crave and therefore it is easier using a jar! If I lived nearer to Manchester or actually went into Manchester on a more regular basis than once every six months and did more than visit the Arndale I would take advantage of the local ethnic shops and would buy my pastes from there. However I'm too lazy, so my curry pastes are normally from Asda who do a fantastic ethnic range, and my Thai paste are usually Sainsburys own as I find the Bart ones too spicy.

Recently while perusing the aisles of Asda we came across this paste.

The description is as follows; Balangwu, Suya Paste - spicy hausa/fulani peanut cooking paste.

Ingredients; groundnut paste, pepper, ginger, clove, nutmeg, spices, groundnut oil.

As you can see its a little vague!! Who knows what "spices" covers, considering it specifically mentions pepper, ginger etc.

Now hubby doesn't do much cooking in our house. He likes to come in and stir things whilst I'm cooking, and he does a mean chilli when he sets his mind to it, but its usually a once every few months occurrence. Anyway after all my baking and creating over Easter Weekend (which included Nachos for 10) I think he felt it was his turn and that curry was the order of the day. Obviously it couldn't be made with whatever meat we had in the freezer, it had to be made with what it suggested on the back of the label which was lamb! Well it would be wouldn't it! So off I toddle to Sainsburys and come back with a cheap and cheerful pack of neck fillet.

Hubby shut himself in the kitchen and proceeded to make this culinary masterpiece.

African Curry

200g lamb neck fillet cut in chunks

1 large onion chopped

2 dessert spoons of curry paste

1 red pepper chopped

as many mushrooms as you like chopped

half pint of water

2tbs of peanut butter

2tbs of coconut cream

brown rice to serve

1) fry off onion and add curry paste. cook out for 5 minutes

2) add lamb neck and brown

3) add in peanut butter, coconut cream and half pint of water

4) leave to simmer for 1hr or until lamb is very tender

5) add in mushrooms and peppers for the last 10 minutes

6) serve with brown rice

The curry paste is VERY hot. It recommends 2-3 dessertspoons and it certainly made our noses run! On the jar it just advises using the paste with water, but the addition of the coconut made it a creamier and more to our liking. Despite the spiciness it was a really good curry. Lots of flavour and quite addictive. We will definitely make this again and I have already mixed a bit of the paste in with some coconut cream as a marinade for some chicken legs which are in the freezer waiting for a suitable BBQ day!