Topic: Lamb Tikka Sous Vide - Recipe

[BenODwyer]

Hello Everyone

This is my first post but I have been an avid follower of this forum for years. Making many of your great recipes.

I travel a lot for work and have eaten in hundreds of different curry restaurants up and down the country.

I would say I have a very good idea of what is a good indian meal.

Recently I purchased the Sous-Vide Supreme home water bath and have been trying it out with a lot of different recipes.

The other day I made my first attempt at Lamb Tikka using the sous-vide.

I used a whole butterflied lamb leg that I picked up from waitrose for the great price of 4 quid.

Instead of cubing the meat I left it whole and made a yogurt less tikka recipe as below:

Recipe:

2 tsb finely chopped chilli (I used red chillies as that is what I had in)
2 tsb finely chopped ginger
2 large garlic cloves (use 3 if they are small)
1.5 tsb course sea salt
1 tsb red chilli powder
1.5 tsb whole cumin seeds
1.5 tsb Garam Masala

Directions:

Put all the ingredients into a pestle and mortar and smash into a smooth paste.
This takes a few minutes but it is worth it ;o)
Score the lamb all over and rub in the paste well.
Place the marinated lamb in a vacuum bag and seal.
Put the sealed bag in the fridge overnight to marinate.

Set the water bath to 62C and slow cook the lamb for approx 3 hours. Less time will result in tougher meat, over 5-6 hours may make the meat too tender and a bit strange to eat.

After 3 hours...
Place a heavy bottomed frying pan on the stove and heat on high until smoking hot.
Add 1 tbs of both olive oil and butter to the pan and brown the lamb on all sides for approx 1 minute per side.

You are after a nice crispy outside.

To serve I carved the Lamb into thick slices and served with a minted yogurt and coriander dip.

This is by far the best Lamb Tikka I have ever had. The lamb was just pink and melted in the mouth, yet had all the great flavour you would expect from a good tikka.

This was so good I just had to make this post.

I would love to hear your comments if you get chance to cook this. It really is that good!

Thanks

Ben

[976bar]

Some pictures of your results would be good BD

Oh! and welcome to forum, if you have been following all this for several years then you will/should know all the recipes on here by now....

It's nice to see some of our quieter members come forward with their ideas

[PaulP]

Hi Ben and welcome to the forum 

You've beat me to it - by that I mean I bought a Sous Vide Magic controller and a cheap rice cooker to use as the water bath about a month ago. I was hoping to adopt the technique for lamb or chicken in BIR food.
I've read so many times that raw fresh garlic can overpower the food after a long cook in the plastic bag but it sounds like you didn't have that problem?

So far I've done:

Pork belly for 24 hours, very nice. Can't rememer the temp I used.
Pork Chops at 62 degrees - a little dry and rubbery.
Rump steak at 60, was a little dry so next time I'll try 55.
Lamb neck fillet, 70 degrees for 48 hours. Wow that was tender!
Chicken breast at 62 degrees. This turns out great but a few red spots here and there.

I hope to post some of my experiments over the next few months with pre-cooked chicken and lamb in a BIR context.

Cheers,

Paul

[fried]

You can also just seal the lamb in foil in which you have poured water (and whatever herbs/spices you wish).

140?C for 4 hours and it will be melt in the mouth.

You'd probably be better to reduce the cooking time for Tikka. I've only ever used this recipe to roast a lamb joint but I'd imagine it'd work well for Tikka. I might even try it myself.

[BenODwyer]

Hello All

I didn't take any pictures as I was making it I am afraid but I will be making it again very soon.

I will make sure to take some snaps as I go.

Paul I have tried all sorts in the Sous Vide. Fish is amazing!! Just a few chives and a couple of slices of lemon in the bag with the fish works great.

I use the Sous vide a lot for steak. I am a big ribeye fan but I have now started using chuck steak cooked at 56.5C for about 3 hours then sealed in a very hot pan after cooking. Perfect medium rare every time. Eats just as well as ribeye but less fat!

The one thing that was dissapointing is pork. Did 48 hours ribs and they were amazingly tender but very bland. Pork loin steaks were also a bit on the bland side.

Lamb, beef and fish are born to be cooked in the sous vide. They come out the best for me.

If I make any other BIR style dishes I will be sure to post them.

Cheers for your comments.

Ben