Simple Rogan Josh for the curry impaired

Right, I made this earlier in the week and it worked out... sorta. Gotta get me some cardamom. Needs the cardamom. Now here's the kicker - you don't actually need cardamom seeds, which is good because lord knows where I'd get those. I have not found any here in Denmark, but I may not be going to the right places. I'm going to bring some back from Israel, but I'm not going there until June and I'm not waiting that long to make this again. So here's the cheat: 10 pods of cardamom = 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. So all I have to do is find GROUND CARDAMOM, which I think might be easier, and try this recipe again.

Apart from being a little bland (lack of cardamom), it came out pretty darned good.

I nabbed the recipe from BBC, and I think I even linked to it in a previous post, but I'm going to give you the recipe here with my alterations.

Ingredients
6 garlic cloves
1 large onion, roughly chopped
thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and roughtly chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp tomato puree
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 kg lamb or beef
8-10 cardamom pods lightly crushed OR 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 can or bottle of beer (300 ml/10 oz)

Instructions
1. Using a food processor, blender, or immersion blender, puree the garlic, onion, ginger, all the ground spices (including the ground cardamom if you are using it instead of the pods, but NOT the pods if you are using pods), salt and tomato puree. I used an immersion blender in a glass and it worked fine, after a fashion. If you have none of these things, you can still make this by shredding the onion and ginger, and mincing the garlic, that's what I did the first time I made it and it worked out okay.
2. Heat the oil in a large pot and add the meat and the cardamom pods, if you are using the pods. Fry it all up so the meat is brown. Stir in the spicy paste and cook for about 5 minutes, stir frequently and turn on the fan. Whew that's spicy stuff!
3. Add the beer and bring to a simmer. Cover with a lid and cook for about 1 to 1 1/4 hours, stirring occasionally. Let the dish sit for 5 minutes before serving. Serve over rice. Make naan if you can. I can't... or at least... I haven't yet. There's that whole let it sit and rise for an hour that I just can't remember to plan for.

My attempts to buy lamb at the butcher didn't work so well. It cost too much. If I'd wanted a sheep head or a sheep leg, it would have been cheap, but I wanted a kilo of nice muscle. Tsk. So I went with beef, which is much cheaper. I bought a huge lump of it and cut it down myself. I need to get my fancy knives out of storage, de-tendon-ing the beef was rather difficult with my tiny little knife. I imagined I was a caveman trying to scrape meat with an obsidian blade. Grunting a lot helped with the tricky bits. This has probably grossed out the vegetarians by now. Sorry about that. But I do love the smell and feel of raw meat.