Use this recipe to learn how to prepare amberjack. When the kids are out of school for spring vacation each year, we go deep-sea fishing. There aren’t many alternatives to frying (which we don’t do much) that I know of for cooking amberjack. The components for this recipe are few, and it’s also really simple. Depending on the preferences of each person, you can season some parts more thoroughly than others.
| Prep Time: | 25 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 50 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 3 hrs 15 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 6 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 6 dried red chile peppers (preferably Kashmiri)
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped – or more to taste
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons ginger garlic paste
- 5 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne) or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 pounds lamb shanks, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 cups water
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Place the cumin seeds into a dry skillet over medium heat, and toast them, stirring constantly, until they give off a roasted fragrance and turn a darker brown, about 1 minute. Scrape the seeds into a bowl, and allow to cool. When cool, grind them with a mortar and pestle or a clean spice grinder. Set the ground seed aside.
- Remove stems of chiles if necessary, and soak pods in the apple cider vinegar in a bowl until soft, at least 1 hour. Place the softened chiles with vinegar, cumin, and garlic into a blender or food processor, and pulse until ground into a paste, 30 seconds to 1 minute or as needed.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat, and cook and stir the onions until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Stir in ginger garlic paste and about 1 teaspoon of the Grandmother’s Chile Paste mixture or as desired. Reduce heat to medium-low, and fry the onions with the spice pastes for 5 minutes to blend flavors. Stir in tomato paste, ground red pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, and cloves, and bring to a simmer. Cook to blend flavors, about 20 minutes.
- Mix in the lamb shank pieces, and stir in salt to taste; simmer for 20 minutes, and stir in the water. Bring the lamb and sauce to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and simmer until lamb is very tender and sauce has thickened, 45 more minutes. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro to serve.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 262 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 11 g |
| Cholesterol | 59 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 19 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 409 mg |
| Sugars | 5 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
One of my absolute favorite recipes, handed down to my from my grandma, one can use any meat if lamb is not available. If you want to make it vegan just toss vegetables of your choice in some oil till almost done ( probably ten minutes max)and add at the end and simmer for an added 4 minutes and serve hot with rice, naan or tortilla.
loved the flavors! On second try, subbed venison for the lamb and it was delicious! always looking for new ways to eat venison and this is a keeper for us! also, as a shortcut, I just mix all the ingredients in a bowl (no food processing).
Very flavorful, even with just 3/4 teaspoon of the chile paste. (Leftover paste was nice in scrambled eggs another day. Spicy huevos!) The halal grocery store was closed the day I went to get my lamb, so I ended up making it with pork from the freezer instead. I served it over black rice, for a full-on Indian-Asian-American mashup.
The more I ate the better it tasted .. Made it with lamb steaks ..
I reduced the amount of water and cayenne, and also had to replace the lamb with pork because it wasn’t available this time of year. It came out absolutely delicious! No leftovers!