On the heat. Mild — sour, not hot

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg lamb stewing cubes
• 6 onions, sliced — yes, six
• 3 tbsp oil or lamb fat
• 60 g tamarind pulp in 200 ml hot water, strained
• 12 allspice berries, crushed
• 6 cloves · 3 bay leaves
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 lemon leaves (if you have them)
• Salt, black pepper

Method

1. Brown the lamb hard in batches and set aside. Colour is the only depth this dish gets — there is no tomato and no stock.
2. All six onions into the fat with a good pinch of salt. Cook them 25 minutes over medium-low until collapsed and sweet. They are the sauce.
3. Garlic, allspice, cloves and bay in for two minutes.
4. Meat back in with the strained tamarind, sugar and lemon leaves. It should look barely wet — do not add water.
5. Lid on, lowest heat, 2 hours. The onions will release enough liquid. Stir only twice.
6. Season at the end. It should be dark, sour-sweet and thick. Yellow rice with raisins, and nothing else.

Cook's note. One of the oldest recipes in the country, brought by enslaved and exiled people from the Indonesian archipelago in the 1600s. The sourness is tamarind, never vinegar.

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