British Indian restaurant (BIR) style lamb bhuna.
My Latest and Favourite Lamb Bhuna Recipe is in my New Hardbound Cookbook!
I have made a lot of beef and lamb bhuna curries over the past year. The authentic Indian bhunas are quite a lot harder to make than this restaurant style bhuna.
Bhuna cooking is a style of cooking in India where hot oil is used to release the flavours of a long list of spices before adding raw meat – often cut into small pieces on the bone.
Lamb Bhuna is a dry curry that is very popular at British Indian restaurants.
Once the meat is added, stock or water is sprinkled into the pan in small amounts which is then cooked into the meat. This process is repeated for an hour or more until the meat becomes fall off the bone tender and the flavour in the resulting dry curry is out of this world.
This style of cooking would not be possible in a busy Indian curry house so the recipe has been changed. BIR lamb bhuna is still a dry curry but it is made in a fraction of the time as cooked meat is used instead of slow cooking raw meat.
Many Indian restaurants add a drop or two of red food colouring to this dish which gives the meat an attractive pink glow. I have left this step out of my recipe but by all means do so if you want.
As with most of my British Indian restaurant style curries, you will want to pre cook your meat and make a base sauce first. Once this is done, you can literally cook this curry in under 10 minutes.
Forward Planning
Curry Sauce
I have written a large and small version of my curry sauce recipe which will need to me made before cooking this recipe. The large version is made just like they do in the best curry houses. Make a large batch for best results. It keeps in the fridge for three days and freezes well. The small batch version works well too though it’s not as authentic.
PRE-COOKED MEAT
I pre-cook meat in two ways. Most restaurants slow cook their meat in a spicy sauce such as this one for this recipe. They usually swirl in a little of the cooking juices too for extra flavour. If you’re feeling adventurous, you might like to add tandoori lamb tikka instead.
Frying the onions and garlic and ginger paste.
There are a lot of different spices in the tandoori and curry powders.
Adding the base curry sauce and pre-cooked lamb.
To finish, stir in the yogurt.
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- 800g Pre-Cooked Lamb
- 3 tablespoons ghee
- 2 tablespoons curry powder
- 2 tablespoons tandoori powder
- 2 tablespoon tomato paste
- Juice of one or two limes (Done to your own taste)
- 2 tablespoons garlic and ginger paste
- 1 small onion - finely chopped
- 400ml base curry sauce
- 2 tablespoons yogurt
- 1 small bunch coriander leaves - finely chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
- Chopped red chilli (optional)
- Heat the oil in a wok or large pan over medium high heat.
- Pour in the oil. When it is bubbling add the tomato paste, curry powder and tandoori powder.
- Stir the spices around in the hot oil so that they do not burn for about 30 seconds.
- Add the chopped onion and the garlic and ginger pastes. Continue stirring until the finely chopped onion becomes translucent. About two minutes.
- Now add the meat and just enough of the curry sauce to coat it. Remember bhuna is quite a dry curry but it doesn’t have to be. If you want more sauce, just add it and don’t tell anyone.
- Bring the curry up to heat so that the sauce is spitting a bit and then stir in the yogurt one tablespoon at a time, followed by the lime juice.
- I really like the tart taste of the lime so I use a lot of lime juice. How much you use is up to you.
- Just before serving, add the chopped coriander and taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Finish with the chopped red chilli peppers if using.
Ooh, first to review this recipe! I absolutely adore bhoona but was always put off by recipes that described it as a dry curry as here in Scotland it tends to come with a healthy dose of rich, spicy sauce. By adding a little bit extra of your sauce when cooking, it made it into the perfect, Scottish Indian bhoona. In fact, I think it was better! So tasty, with the perfect amount of spicy heat, doubt I’ll be back for a takeaway for some time! Thanks Dan 🙂
Thank you very much Gillian for trying the recipe and for leaving a comment. Comments like that make all the blogging worthwhile! I’m really glad you liked it.
Dan
And congrats for your Scottish Indian lamb bhoona!
i have made the curry sauce. will be making bhuna tomorrow night, can’t wait.
Great to hear Dan. Good luck with the curry cooking.
Dan
Made this over the summer hols for my dad coming over. It was spot on! Thanks very much 😀
Great to hear. Thanks for that.
hi dan love the site some great recipes that I will be attacking this weekend just 1 little question
chicken tikka bhuna is my fave curry ever can I use this recipe just exchanging cooked chicken tikka for the lamb or is there anything you suggest I change when turning it into a chicken tikka bhuna
thanks
dean
Hi Dean
You can but be sure to either precook your lamb or cook for longer. Lamb takes about an hour to get tender.
Good luck.
Dan
hi i have made a large batch of your base sauce ….i wish to make a bhuna would i just times 4 the mix to add to the base sauce ?????
Hi Steph
I’m not sure I understand your question. This recipe calls for 400ml of the base sauce. Please let me know if you have a question about it.
Thanks
Dan
Hi Dan,
Great recipe, and fantastic website:
I made a couple of changes as I didn’t have all the ingredients;
First i used beef instead of lamb.
Secondly didn’t have the tandoori powder, (or the ingredients to make your mix), so used 2 tablespoons of Balti Curry Powder, a teaspoon of Tikka spices, and 1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder instead.
The resulting curry was fantastic, and the first curry I’ve cooked that my wife actually liked.
keep up the good work
Thanks Jon. Glad you were able to find alternative ingredients. 🙂
Dan
hi
i made this curry and it was a hugggeee hit at my house i have just forgotten weather i used boneless meat or not? boneless is what is used yes?
also by pre cooking i would just boil it right?
terrible memory
thanks
No meat in this house, so it was catfish that went into the bhuna.
2 portions of the base curry sauce were left, so one went into this.
Made it exactly as the recipe stated, apart from the replacement of lamb with 2″ catfish fillet chunks.
Extra lime drizzled over the final curry completed it and it was probably the best out of those we’ve made so far from the site.
We’ll definitely be repeating this soon (after we’ve finished off the other half of the serving that’s in the freezer).
Thanks again for these excellent recipes.
Hi Lee
Love it! Never tried catfish with this but will now.
Thanks,
Dan
Hi Dan
Made this tonight, quite possibley the best curry I’ve ever tasted.
I made it with chuck steak, did a small batch of gravy in the pressure cooker then added the beef to the gravy in the pressure cooker and gave it another 20mins, then followed your recipe yet with some sliced green pepper (love it in curry).
Dished up with your naan on the hob recipe….perfect.
cheers
Steve
Hi Dan,
Adore this recipe! I make it, and many of your others quite regularly and I took deliver of your book today, I grew up pre t’interweb so I thought it’d be nice to use a book again. Recipes are different though, what gives mate?
Jay
Hi Jay
Thank you for buying my book. The recipes are only slightly different. The recipes in my book are very authentic curry house as I have seen them made most often while researching for the book. Hope you like them too. Thanks, Dan
Love your book and the recipes. I am really glad to have discovered you. I have a question. I made a batch of Base Curry mix as per your book, and froze it. When I came to make a curry I found that I only needed about half the quantity that I had frozen. Can I refreeze the other half. I apologise if this is a stupid question, but I am loathe to throw it away. My curry was great by the way.
Thanks a lot Paul
Hi Paul
Officially I’m supposed to say not to refreeze as many professionals advise against it. Would I refreeze it? You bet.
Thanks and I’m really happy you are enjoying the book.
Dan
Hi Dan,
Your curry sauce recipe looks very good.
Could you please put up some vegetarian recipies using your curry sauce?
Or should i just use cottage cheese instead of the meat?
Cheers
Ashish
Hi Ashish
Thanks for getting in touch. I’ve been really busy lately and haven’t added many new recipes to my blog. I will add some more veggie recipes soon. Paneer would work really well though.
Thanks,
Dan
I love this book and love this recipe. As an expat Glaswegian it was great to prepare a meal that thoroughly impressed visiting family. I am so excited to make British restaurant quality food in Australia!
Hi Angus
That’s great to hear. Thank you.
Dan
I love your book, Dan. You are awesome! I’ve been living in Canada for over 20 years and I finally have some authentic BIR recipes at my finger tips…love it!
Thank you so much Pam. I’m really happy you are enjoying my book.
Much appreciated. 🙂
Dan
Great taste Dan, loved it. We made ours with a bit more sauce too. Thumbs up.
Great to hear Stu. Thank you.
Dan
Hi Dan
Made this one tonight using prawns rather than lamb.
It was a great success. Easy to make and delicious.
Thanks James
Hi James
Great to hear. I’m happy you like the recipe.
Thanks,
Dan