This is a mutton curry recipe I found in “Singapore Food” by Wendy Hutton. I'm copying it here because I've deviated from the original in a number of ways. In particular, it uses about double the quantity of spices. Why do Western books recommend so few spices? This is no criticism of Wendy Hutton: other recipe books recommend as little as a tenth of the correct quantity of spices.

Ingredients

quantity	ingredient	step
40 ml	coriander seeds	1
20 ml	cumminseed	1
10 ml	fennel seed	1
3 cm	cinnamon stick	1
8	cloves	1
5 ml	black peppercorns	1
1/8	nutmeg	1
20 ml	turmeric	1
30 ml	hot chili powder	1
300 g	onions	2
4	cloves garlic	2
3 cm	ginger	2
500 g	mutton	3
200 ml	coconut milk	4
40 ml	tamarind concentrate	4

Preparation

1. Bake the whole spices in the oven at 50° for about 10 minutes to dry them out (otherwise they will clog up the grinder). Grind in a spice grinder. If any are already powdered spices, add them now. Mix with enough water to make a thick paste.

2. Finely mince the onions, ginger and garlic. Fry in oil until the paste starts to dry out (the oil will separate), about 3 minutes.

3. Add the spice paste and mix well. Cook for another 3 or 4 minutes.

4. Add the meat and mix in well. Add water to cover and 1½ teaspoons of salt. Bring to the boil and simmer until nearly cooked, which can be a long time (up to 1½ hours).

5. Add the coconut milk and tamarind paste and cook for another 10 minutes.