There are a million recipes for this; you can do any style of curry you like, this is just one that I quite like. I’ll explain why…

… or you can just jump to the recipe.

There are a lot of variations and I won’t list theme here, but there are some key choices you need to make:

• Spicing? This is, in my opinion, completely up to you.
• Which meat will you use?
• Do you marinate the meat?
• Do you brown it?
• How do you build the sauce
• Which herbs?

Spices

I’ve talked before about whole spices. I chose to use them, but many recipes I’ve found show that not everyone does. This was 500g of mince and a teaspoon of Panch Phoran is enough to get it going. In this specific one I used nigella, cumin and fennel seeds. Green cardamom would well too – take the little seeds out of the pod first.

I’m pretty sure it was Cyrus Todiwala on Saturday Kitchen (on the BBC) who mixed the ground spices in a bowl and put some water on them to stop them burning when they went in the pan. I always do this now.

Meat

It’s minced and I usually use lamb, but I’ve often done it with beef, and found online recipes for turkey (or chicken, but that’s harder to get in UK supermarkets so I’ve never done it). Pork? Why not? But I don’t fancy it really. So this is lamb

Some recipes call for the meat to be marinated, but I don’t bother as it’s so small anyway. There will be enough flavour in the sauce and there is no need to use a marinade to tenderise it as it’s already ground.

Browning the meat is fine but doesn’t make much difference to the flavour as far as I can taste. It changes the texture though and it does enable you to remove some of the fat. If you want to do this, brown the meat first, remove it from the pan and pour the fat off, then wipe the pan and proceed as normal. I didn’t do that here.

Sauce

There are the usual options for the sauce including cocnut milk and/or tamarind, which are lovely. Most of the ones I’ve found use blended tomatoes (I used passata for this one). But I also use yogurt because I like the slight sourness it adds.

Herbs

I used mint in this one as it goes well with lamb, and that’s all I had. Coriander would work well too. I don’t use mint unless I’m using lamb. If you are using beef or turkey then use coriander, but it’s also really nice if you just leave it out.

I coincidentally had a fresh chatni I’d made for another meal with mint, coriander and lime juice. I used that as an additiona topping as it goes well with pretty much anything.

Method

Heat some ghee or oil over a medium heat and throw in the whole spices. They should gently sizzle for about 30 seconds before you add the onion. Give it a good stir and gently fry the onion for a minute or so then turn the heat right down and put a lid on to gently fry/sweat the onions. This takes about 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.

Add the ginger and chilli and turn the heat back up. Fry it all for a couple of minutes and then add the garlic and fry for a minute more.

Add the ground spices and fry for another two to three minutes, or until it smealls nice, then stir in the yogurt and cook, stirring for another couple of minutes or so. Then add the tomatoes, the meat amd the potatoes, give it a stir and put the lid back on with the heat down again.

Cook it gently, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t catch, until the potatoes are almost tender. Then stir in the mint and the peas, sprinkle the garam masala on top and cook for another few minutes.

That’s it!

Ingredients

• 1-2tsp panch phoran or half a tsp of fennel seeds, cumin seeds and nigella seeds
• a finely chopped onion
• a thumb sized piece of ginger grated or finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves
• chopped fresh chilli to taste. I used half a red chilli
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1tsp turmeric
• 1tsp garam massala
• 2tsp ground coriander
• 3 big spoonfuls of yogurt
• 400g tinned tomatoes or passata
• 500g minced lamb
• a handful of fres mint leaves, finely chopped
• a good handful of frozen peas
• 2tsp garam masala