Mutton (or Goat) and Salt Cod Spicy Stew

Immediately I can here the murmurs of

" what in the name of all that's holy is in on about? Fish and mutton?? The lads lost the plot"

Bare with me guys!! You won't regret it!!

It's a recipe I was taught when I was a spotty faced trainee many many years ago by the man who first got me into my obsession with seafood, he'd throw all manner of different ingredients together and come up with spectacular dishes, I do however think, and I'm sure someone will put me straight, that this dish, or something very similar, is of African origin, a place he visited regular, so I'll go with that!!

Again I'm going to use mutton, just because I believe that the flavours work really well, you can if you want use stewing lamb, and I've also used goat too! Well worth trying if you've never eaten goat before

SHOPPING LIST

1kg of boneless diced mutton

500g of salt cod, soaked for at least 24 hours ( change the water a couple of times)

A good splash of sunflower oil

2 large onion roughly chopped

50g of fresh ginger grated ( don't waste your time peeling it!!)

4 cloves of garlic crushed

4 teaspoons of curry powder (the heat is up to you)

2 fresh red chilli

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1.5 litres of lamb stock

200g of pumpkin seeds (blitzed to grind them up)

100g of dried shrimp ( optional but well worth adding)

700g of fresh spinach

METHOD

Firstly drain of the salt cod and cover with fresh water and simmer for about 30 minutes

Leave to cool and pick out any bones

In a frying pan, brown your mutton pieces in batches until nicely browned

Now in a saucepan, fry together the onions, garlic, ginger, curry powder and whole chilli until the onions are nice and soft

Now add the mutton, chopped tomatoes, salt cod, and the stock

Now gently simmer DO NOT BOIL!! For approximately 1 1/2 - 2 hours

In a food processor blitz the shrimp and pumpkin seeds together

Mix them through the stew and simmer for 15 minutes

Now add the spinach

Check the seasoning

Your Mutton and Salt Cod Spicy Stew is now ready

I'd serve this with some rice and maybe some more chopped chilli (love my chilli)