On the heat. Mild — sour, deep, green

Ingredients

• 1 kg lamb stewing cubes
• — THE HERBS — 1 KG, FRESH WEIGHT
• 400 g parsley · 300 g coriander
• 200 g chives or spring onion tops
• 100 g fenugreek leaves (essential)
• — THE REST
• 2 onions, chopped · 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tin red kidney beans, drained
• 5 dried limes (limoo omani), pierced
• 4 tbsp oil or rendered tail fat · salt, pepper

Method

1. Chop all the herbs very fine. Fry them in half the fat over medium-low heat for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring, until they go from bright green to very dark and smell nutty. This step is the dish and cannot be shortened.
2. Separately, brown the onions in the rest of the fat, add turmeric, then the lamb, and brown it well.
3. Combine. Add 1.2 litres water and the pierced dried limes.
4. Lid on, lowest heat, 2 hours. Press the limes against the side of the pot occasionally to release them.
5. Kidney beans in for the last 30 minutes. Season at the end.
6. It should be dark green-black, oily on top and intensely sour. Serve with plain chelow rice and tahdig if you can make it.

Cook's note. If it tastes flat, it is the limes. Pierce them, and if they are old, break one open and drop the pulp in — the shells alone lose their power with age.

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