A curry-house favourite originating from Bengal (part of which is in modern-day Bangladesh), the word bhuna (meaning fried) refers to the cooking process rather than the type of dish. Typically the meat and sauce are cooked on a high heat until the meat is ‘frying’ in the oil-rich mixture. Serve with roti or naan rather than rice, and cucumber raita.
Tamsin learned the tricks of the trade from cookery legend Delia Smith. A trusted recipe writer for the magazine for over 25 years, she is now our Senior Food Producer, overseeing testing and editing to ensure that every recipe tastes great, is straightforward to follow and works without fail. In her home kitchen, Tamsin creates fuss-free flavour-packed food for friends and family, with baking being her ultimate form of comfort cooking
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Tamsin Burnett-Hall
Tamsin learned the tricks of the trade from cookery legend Delia Smith. A trusted recipe writer for the magazine for over 25 years, she is now our Senior Food Producer, overseeing testing and editing to ensure that every recipe tastes great, is straightforward to follow and works without fail. In her home kitchen, Tamsin creates fuss-free flavour-packed food for friends and family, with baking being her ultimate form of comfort cooking
See more of Tamsin Burnett-Hall’s recipes
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Ingredients
4 tbsp vegetable oil
6 cardamom pods, bashed
½ tsp black peppercorns
8 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
2 onions, finely chopped
1 tbsp grated root ginger
6 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground turmeric
¼-½ tsp hot chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
1 x 400g tin plum tomatoes
2 finger chillies, whole
900g boneless lamb leg, cut into 3cm chunks
1 tbsp dried methi (fenugreek leave), optional
To serve (optional)
coriander
roti* or naan*
cucumber raita*
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Step by step
Heat the oil in a sauté pan and fry the whole spices and bay leaves for 1 minute. Add the onions and fry until golden brown.
Mix in the ginger and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring, then add the ground spices and cook for 1 minute until fragrant. Next add the tomatoes, roughly breaking them up, the whole chillies and the diced lamb, plus a pinch of salt. Fill up the tomato tin with water, swirl, and pour half into the pan. Mix well, bring to the boil, partially cover and simmer fairly briskly for 15-20 minutes until saucy.
Uncover the pan, increase the heat and cook, stirring frequently, for 10-12 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated (this is the bhuno process); the oil should be starting to show and sizzle at the edges of the pan. Add the rest of the water from the tomato tin, cover again and simmer gently for 30 minutes or until the lamb is tender. Traditionally a bhuna is quite dry, so uncover and reduce again if needed.
Mix in the dried methi to round out the flavours, if using, garnish with coriander and serve with roti or naan, plus raita.
*Ensure your chosen accompaniments suit any dietary requirements.
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Slow-Cooked Lamb Bhuna - a hot curry, made by frying spices gently, before adding the meat, tomatoes and stock and then letting it simmer away in the oven until tender. It's served in a lusciously thick sauce that clings to the meat.
Lamb - shoulder is best, it's marbled with fat so it's beautifully juicy once slow cooked until fall apart tender. Trim big hunks of fat but leave some. You want 750g of lamb after trimming. Do not use leg or other lean cut, it will be dry.
A bhuna tends to be made with meat or vegetables that are cooked in their own juices resulting in a sauce that has a deep richness in flavour. The key aromatics come from the use of freshly toasted spices - I always use cumin, coriander, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds and mustard seeds.
Similar to a Bhuna, the main difference between these two curries comes from the sauce and flavours. In a Lamb Rogan Josh, cardamon, cloves and cinnamon are what give it those unique flavourings. While in a Bhuna, you're sticking to those typical flavours of ginger, garlic and tomato with a little less heat.
Bhindi Gosht. This popular Pakistani curry is lamb with okra and is a relatively dry curry like a bhuna - so the sauce coats the lamb rather than the lamb sitting in a runny gravy.
Yes, we do. Observant Jews will only eat lamb that was properly slaughtered and butchered in accordance with Jewish ritual law, and many Jews have a custom not to eat roasted lamb at the Passover Seder to show mourning for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The leg and rack of lamb are perfect for herb-crusting and oven-roasting; since the shank and shoulder are a bit tougher, they fare well in stews or braises—the long cook time allows them to significantly break down and become fork-tender.
Indian cuisine encompasses a wide range of methods, and some dishes are healthier than others. Look for terms like "bharta" (roasted and mashed), "jalfrezi" (stir-fried with vegetables), or "bhuna" (slow-cooked with spices). These methods typically involve less oil and can be healthier choices.
Both a Hindi and Bengali term, bhuna loosely translates to roasting or frying. The process begins by “frying the onion, ginger, and garlic masala base in some fat, with constant stirring, until the moisture evaporates completely,” explains Sanhita Dasgupta Sensarma, who runs Gusto by Sanhita, a Bangalore-based pop-up.
Any Indian curries that are tomato-based, like tandoori, madras, jalfrezi, rogan and bhuna, are the lowest in calories. They average around 200-300 calories. If you want an even healthier option, consider a sauce-free dish like fish tikka (which is only 180 calories).
The name bhuna again refers to the style in which the curry meat is cooked. In Urdu, bhunna means to be fried. The dish, which originates from Bengal, is typically prepared by frying lots of spices at a high temperature. The meat is then added, and simmers away in its own juices.
The word bhuna actually refers to the cooking process rather than the type of dish. Originating from the Urdu word for 'fried', the spices used in the curry are fried in oil or ghee at a high temperature until they form a paste. This helps to bring out the flavours.
There are 221 calories per portion in this Chicken Bhuna, which means it falls into our Everyday Light category. To cut down the amount of calories even more, you can simply halve the portion size and serve with a healthy accompaniment!
Bhuna and Balti come under medium spiced preparations like dopiaza, rogan josh and Karahi, and Bhuna is a dry variant compared to Balti. On the other hand, Rogan Josh and Bhuna are similar in many ways as they are both prepared with many tomatoes, but Bhuna tends to be drier than Rogan Josh.
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Prep time: 35 mins
