Rezala

Rezala is a Bangladeshi and Bengali mild lamb or goat curry with saffron, rose water, yoghurt or curd, lightly spiced with cardamom and cassia. As a dish for high days and holy days, it's almost a sweet and sour, rich and poor representation of the people of the land from which it comes. If you can get goat, well and good, but if not, make it with lamb or hogget, as I have here. Hogget is lamb that is past its first year and has far more taste and flavour than lamb.

Ingredients:
4 onions, halved
3-4 inch piece of root ginger, roughly chopped
8-9 cloves garlic
100g ghee or clarified butter
10 green cardamom pods
3-4 sticks of cassia bark (tuj or Chinese cinnamon)
1.5kg shoulder of hogget, cut into 1-2 inch cubes
250g full-fat natural yoghurt
15ml dark muscovado sugar
5ml salt
6 dried chillies
30ml rose water
a loose pinch of saffron threads
2 long thin green chillies, cut lengthways
zest and juice of a lime

Method:
Thinly slice half the onions and roughly chop the rest. Put the roughly chopped onions in a blender with the ginger and garlic and blend to a smooth paste.

Heat the ghee in a heavy-based saucepan over a medium to high heat. Add the cardamom and cassia and leave to sizzle for a short while until they give off an aromatic odour.

Add the sliced onion and fry for about 10 minutes until the onion is past being translucent and has quite a bit of colour. Add the onion paste and fry another 5 minutes, stirring as they cook so as not to allow them to catch on the bottom of the pan.

Add the hogget and fry for 5 minutes, stirring to cook the meat all over. Now add the yoghurt, a little at a time, stirring between each addition for a minute or so before making the next addition. This is to ensure that the yoghurt does not split - stirring is essential. Continue untill all the yoghurt is added, then mix in the sugar and salt. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for about half an hour.

Meanwhile soak the dried chillies in enough boiling water to cover them and leave to soak for half an hour. Soak the saffron in rose water in a small bowl, crushing the threads a little with the back of a teaspoon. Place the bowl over a dish of hot water so as to warm it and leave it to soak for half an hour.

Drain the soaked chillies and finely chop them - or put them in a blender and pulse tow or three times to chop - don't whizz or they will become a paste, which you don't want. Stir the chopped chillies into the meat with the split green chillies and the saffron and rose water.

Cover the saucepan with a lid and simmer for another half an hour or until the meat is tender. Remove the lid, stir in the lime zest and juice and check the seasoning, adding more salt if required.

Serve with sticky rice, naan bread or parathas.