Durban masala, and the mutton curry it exists for

As tradition built it

The masala makes about 600 g, 30 minutes. The curry is for 500 g of lamb on the bone; no time is stated.

Ingredients

The masala

• 500 g chilli powder
• 25 g ground cumin
• 25 g ground coriander
• 2 tbsp garam masala
• 2 tbsp ground fennel (soomph)
• 2 tbsp turmeric
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

The curry

• 500 g lamb on the bone
• 80 ml vegetable oil
• 1 onion, quartered and thinly sliced
• 2 cinnamon sticks, 3 cm pieces
• 1 star anise
• 1 black cardamom pod
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 2 tsp ginger and garlic paste
• 2 tbsp Durban masala, from above
• ½ tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp garam masala
• ½ tsp ground fennel
• 2 Roma tomatoes, blanched and grated
• 2 potatoes, cut into medium cubes
• to taste salt
• 240 ml water
• optional fresh coriander

Method

The masala

1. Roast the seeds separately in a pan.
2. Grind each one separately, in a coffee grinder or a mortar.
3. Mix all the spices well in a large bowl.
4. Store airtight in a cool place up to a month, or frozen up to six months.

The curry

5. Heat the oil in a pot over a medium heat. Fry the cinnamon, black cardamom, star anise and bay leaves until fragrant.
6. Add the onion and curry leaves and cook until soft, translucent and lightly golden.
7. Stir in the ginger and garlic paste and fry 1 minute.
8. Add the masala, turmeric, ground fennel and garam masala. Fry 1 minute to a thick paste, with drops of water if it catches.
9. Add the lamb and turn it to coat. Cook uncovered 5 minutes.
10. Add the grated tomatoes and salt. Cover and cook until the sauce thickens.
11. Add the potatoes and cook 5 minutes, stirring now and then.
12. Pour in the water. Turn the heat low and simmer until the potatoes are soft, the lamb tender and the gravy thick.
13. Scatter with coriander and serve hot. It is better the next day.

Notes

The masala.

Read the ratio. Chilli is well over 80 per cent of the blend by weight; cumin and coriander together are about 8 per cent. In a north Indian garam masala those proportions are close to reversed. Durban masala is not a curry powder with extra chilli; it is a chilli powder with a supporting aromatic frame, which is why it is dosed by the tablespoon into oil at the start, why it needs fat and time or it tastes raw and dusty, and why it will scorch in seconds if the pan is too hot.

The curry. What the Durban sources agree on is short. Manilal Patel: the oil, fresh masala, and how you cook your onions and garlic. Salma Patel: fresh curry leaves. Bone-in mutton, cooked long. Potato added partway to soak up the gravy. And the doneness marker, which is visual: the oil separates and stands clear on the surface. The Durban cooks dose the masala at 3 to 8 tablespoons a kilo of meat; the curry printed here uses 4.

The masala and the curry are both Lorraine's at Tamarind and Thyme, a Durban cook writing from Johannesburg; the curry is her "Durban Lamb Curry, Original Version", so the dose printed here is hers, 2 tablespoons for 500 g, about 4 a kilo. Her fuller version cooks the blended tomato 5 minutes until the oil surfaces before the meat goes in, then 30 to 45 minutes covered and 1 to 1½ hours with the potatoes. Shane at Durban Curry Recipes uses mutton and 4 tablespoons of masala for 500 g, and puts the curry leaves in after the meat browns.

What a modern chef changes

Roasting done properly, blooming done at a temperature, and the oil slick treated as the measurement it is

Rungs 5 and 1

Method

1. Roast the four seeds separately to smell rather than to colour, at 130 to 160°C. Coriander, cumin, fennel and fenugreek all get there at different rates. This is where the pyrazines come from, and it is the difference between a masala that smells of roasted seed and one that smells of chilli dust.
2. Bloom at 120 to 140°C for 30 to 60 seconds and watch it. A blend that is 80 per cent chilli has almost no seed oil to buffer it and goes from bloomed to burnt in about ten seconds. Take the pan off the heat before the masala goes in, count, and return it.
3. Treat the oil slick as a diagnostic, not a fault. If the oil has not separated and risen, the spice is still locked in the solids and the curry is not finished. This is the same logic as frying a West African groundnut sauce until the oil breaks, arrived at independently on the other side of the continent.
4. Finish the curry leaves in hot oil separately and pour them over at the pass. A tarka of curry leaf and mustard seed at service preserves terpenes an hour of simmering destroys, and it puts the single ingredient that distinguishes Durban from everywhere else at the top of the plate rather than the bottom of the pot.