It’s been a while but today we revisited the very popular Skint Dad Fakeaway with a budget lamb bhuna. For long-time readers you will know in the early days (around 16 months ago) I would attempt to recreate a favourite dish or dishes from one of our local takeaways.
After a little trial and error on 13 October 2013 the first Skint Dad Fakeaway was born! It was a vegetable masala with onion bhajis and naan bread. All made from scratch with basic ingredients and it cost a whopping £2.57 for the whole meal.
For the next few months, every Saturday night we would cook our little butts off recreating a cheaper alternative to what we would normally order as take-out. The following day we would then share the recipe on here along with great photos (they weren’t great) and a cost breakdown of the ingredients.
Although our last stab at a Fakeaway was almost a year ago, I still get people tweeting, emailing and bugging me to start them up again and, as I’m a person that is eager to please my readers, I’ve succumb to their pleas.
Lamb Bhuna Fakeaway
Lamb bhuna isn’t a go to dish of mine when it comes to Indian food. I’m certainly (or have been) more of a Jalfrezi or Masala type of guy and chicken is normally my meat of choice. But, I want to learn to make new dishes and for that I will need to try new dishes.
I’m so glad I made this curry!
Lamb isn’t a meat we eat often as there are cheaper alternatives such as chicken and mince. Very occasionally if we see a leg of lamb discounted at the supermarket (this never happens) we will grab it for a Sunday roast but that’s it.
I know that lamb can be pretty expensive and can push the price of this recipe up but I managed to pick up a reduced pack in Co-op (my local Co-op are great for reducing meat!). You can still normally get it for around £4 for a pack, or can just wait for it to go on offer then buy up a few and freeze them.
If you can’t stretch the budget to use lamb, consider chicken thighs as they work out great too.
The recipe itself was very straightforward. It’s easy to prepare and left to get on with other things such as making homemade onion bhajis (or the washing up).
Bhuna sets itself out to be a medium/hot curry but I didn’t find this recipe to overbearing. In the short time the lamb was cooking the spices infused to give off a deep warming flavour which all of us, including our youngest daughter Chloe, enjoyed.
Because this lamb bhuna dish is quite quick to prepare and cook I can’t see a problem with having it midweek, even if you do start cooking after 5pm.
- 350g lamb, cubed
- 2 onions, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 5g ginger, finely chopped
- 1 tin of tomatoes
- 2 tsp Coriander powder
- ½ tsp Cumin
- ½ tsp Turmeric
- 1 tsp Garam masala
- 1 tsp Chilli powder
- 2 tbsp Oil
- 280g rice
- Heat oil in a pan and add the onions, ginger, garlic, turmeric, coriander powder, cumin and lamb, mixing everything together.
- When the lamb begins to brown, cover the pan, reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Stir half way through.
- Then add the tomatoes, chilli powder, garam masala and a pinch of salt and mix in.
- Cook on low for a further 10-15 minutes without the lid on, until the sauce thickens.
- Serve with rice of your choice.
Penny for your thoughts: What favourite take out dish would you like us to give the skint treatment to? Let us know in the comments below.
Ricky Willis is the original Skint Dad. A money-making enthusiast, father, and husband to Naomi. He is always looking for unique ways to earn a little extra.
From an old cook the best way to buy lamb is lamb shoulder on the bone. It’s cheap as chips. You need to strip it off the bone and cube it yourself. It’s worth it. You can usually get a half shoulder for £3 ish but the equivalent weight of diced shoulder is usually double the price even taking into account the bone! The only thing is you either need to cook the curry in a slow cooker or a low oven for a lot longer as shoulder is a meat that needs a lot of cooking but honestly makes the best curry!
This looks amazing Rick. I am a huge fan of slow cooked cheaper cuts, so will definitely give this a go!