Wogan Gosh (a Eurovision dinner)

I named this curry in honour of the one time eurovision commentator, much lamented since he left:- his ascerbic comments are the memories of my childhood and couldn't be matched by any modern presenter, no matter how much I love Graham Norton.

We don't see this very often: the UK at the top of the leaderboards

Of course it's basically rogan josh, a lamb curry with tomatoes and onions. I've used scrag end of lamb because it's super cheap but you can make it with other cheap cuts like neck fillet, or more expensive ones if you're feeling flush.

First things first, I trimmed all the meat off the scrags and set about turning it into a stock. Just the usual ingredients: celery, carrots, onion, parsley stalks, pepper and bay leaves. Covered with cold water and left to simmer for a couple of hours, lovely.



I coated the meat in cornflour and browned it in a hot pan and then put it to one side while I cooked up sliced garlic, a large sliced onion, a diced stick of celery, a dollop of grated ginger and some crushed cardamom pods.

Once the onions were getting soft I added in a couple of teaspoons of cumin, one of tumeric, one of ground coriander and a couple of bay leaves. When they started to smell terrific, a can of chopped tomatoes went in with a cup or so of lamb stock and sliced green chillies.



Brought it up to a boil then turned down and left it to simmer, just in time to catch Russia's entry, including the immortal lyrics "I lost my mind somewhere between your face". 

Go France though, seriously: an operatic singer at eurovision? Winner. I love it.

Italy, you have done me proud. Reasonably hot man playing a catchy song on a plastic grand piano, short instrumentals by an awesome trumpet player, plus end-of-chorus screeching. He's the Italian Jamie Cullum. Reminds me of my grandad, aw.

Oh Moldova. What are you like, though. Love you guys.

About now, my husband was kind enough to pop out to the kitchen and add the rest of lamb stock to the curry. By romania I was on my 3rd glass of wine. I needed it.

By Azerbaijan I was already thinking about my fourth. They are usually the highlight of the contest but this year's low grade, standard pop offering was a theatrical disappointment. (NOTE: when I wrote this I had no idea they were going to win. Oh the trauma...)
Iceland deserved good voting just for the sad story, but they were actually alright. As my husband said: happy Mumford & sons.

Seriously, this tastes way better
than it looks in my photo!

Anyway, when the curry tasted done, I added a load of chopped coriander, some lemon juice and lots of seasoning.
We ate it with warm, wholemeal pitta breads and some leftover rice, whilst enjoying Georgia's 2Unlimited style offering. Especially the "unusual" dress. 
Interesting fact: Georgia have basically the same flag as ours and share our patron saint. They had a king called George the Brilliant.

I voted for Italy. But it was a close decision: France, Iceland and Moldova all got serious consideration. Italy came second in the end, I'm not too upset about that, but seriously... Azerbaijan's song. Really? There's no way that was better than Italy's entry!