I love cooking this spicy hot curry on cold winter days, but then again, I love to cook it on hot and spicy days. Mad? Yes, most probably. Hence the mad-ass/madras curry was born.
I’m a big fan of offcuts, which are often overlooked. Most of the meat available to us is the prime cuts, which is a pity. A lot of each animal ends up as secondary cuts, even wasted. Lamb neck isn’t something most people would ask for at the butcher’s, but it’s worth trying. We’d organised a whole lamb from a local farmer, so we got a lot of cuts we’d not been used to. It wasn’t a matter of choice, it was a matter of working with what we’d been given. It makes you slightly more creative. Having organised a whole lamb, we also had a freezer stacked with a generous serve of chops. I’m not a big fan of a slab of meat for dinner – I like my meat in things, coated with things and full of flavour. (That sounds a little wrong if you say it out loud.) I’ve been using lamb chops in slow-cooked meals. I think it actually turns out a better result – well, compared to those chewy chops straight off the barbecue.
Next season I think I’ll take up the offer of some orphaned (poddy) lambs and raise them in the backyard. But for now I’m happy for the opportunity to get a lamb locally and experiment with meat I don’t usually cook with.