While the gutter press were busy going "ergghhh!" at Tesco Value burgers that have horse in them and Findus frozen lasagne that is 99% horse, those of us who are less nesh about things like this and who don't fear incurring the wrath of Epona were busy looking on the internets and finding sites at which one can buy horse steaks.
I mean, Central Asians have been eating horse for fucking centuries and it's not done them any harm. And I like curry, so I though I'd give it a go. In fact, the first thing I do with any new form of animal that I intend to eat is to curry it.
YOU WILL NEED
- 700g diced horse steaks.
- A large onion.
- Two pointy sweet peppers.
- Four naga jolokia peppers, sliced and with the seeds retained.
- Four plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped.
- Herbs and spices (1 teaspoon each of fenugreek, coriander, cumin, broken-up cinnamon stick, fennel, mustard seeds, turmeric, peppercorn).
- Front page of tabloid newspaper bemoaning presence of horse on supermarket shelves.
Using whatever oil you fancy (it really does not matter, so Gordon Ramsay can bugger off with his woo about extra virgin olive oil being superior), coat the bottom of a large pan and heat until hot enough to cause serious injury. Bung in the onions and then very lightly heat the horse meat until sealed. You want to be careful about this - horse is a lot less fatty than beef so you don't want to dry it out. You may wish to try using additional oil just to guard against this. Once you've done this, chuck in the tomatoes and stir generously. Then, having previously ground up the spices, bung them in along with everything else. But not the newspaper. That's for later in case you run out of bumwad - and you will, given the amount of Scoville Units in this.
Ideally you want the naga jolokia to go in last so that the capsaicin doesn't get overly diluted.
Bring to the boil then simmer for 40 minutes or so. Stir occasionally to make sure nothing gets stuck on the bottom of the pan. Then boil up some rice, drain it, bed it down, and ladle some of this atop said rice. Serves as many as you want but the more there are of you the less you get.
A good trick is to not tell your dinner guests that it's horse until after they've got it down their neck, as this will then prove to them conclusively that a little bit of Dobbin won't kill them. Don't be such a wet blanket ye big girl's blouse! After all, Daenerys Taryargen wolfed down an entire raw horse heart and that didn't hurt her, and she was (in the novels at least) still a teenager at the time. In fact, due to the fact that horse is denser and less fatty than beef, this is demonstrably healthier for you than an equivalent beef or chicken madras.
Enjoy, and remember - I love horses, they're my friends!
(IN135)