Coconut Poppy seed Mutton

Coconut Poppy seed Mutton 

The first time I slow cooked mutton was after reading an article where the author spoke to a member of one of India's erstwhile Royal families who harped on the beauty of a meat dish when it is slow cooked. That was it I slow cooked mutton , loved it and stuck to it and then there was this one time where the Cooking gas was delivered a month late than it was supposed to be delivered and the household was in a chaos. So for sometime I tried reducing the time taken for slow cooking by slow cooking in a pressure cooker for half the time and then slow cooking the meat which suited me not too badly but then again I must have not even known that in the corner of my heart I did miss slow cooking meat.

One of the wonderful things about interacting with people who are passionate about food is that sometimes matters related to cooking becomes even more clear to you. I am lucky to be part of a group where we have professional chefs and passionate home cooks interacting with each other and so I once again realized I had to slow cook meat and so I did and now its either slow cooking meat or no cooking meat. The flavour is amazing as is the texture of meat which is neither tough nor over cooked but sticks to its bones and melts in your mouth when you take a bite.

I love the flavour of coconut and spices so I was set on this spice mix from Lucknow which uses Charmagaz ( a blend of 4 seeds) etc but then alas I was out of charmagaz.

Thankfully I met with a friend who was talking about how people in our neighbourng state makes meat curry with Poppy seeds. And I knew exactly how I wanted my meat curry to be.

Marinating the mutton in raw papaya juice lessened the time of cooking by half an hour and in the end we licked our bowls clean with some piping hot rice.

From my personal experience the meat tastes even better if you leave it overnight post cooking where the flavours get absorbed even better and you have a wonderful breakfast or brunch for the next day.

800gm goat meat / lamb meat

For marination :-

1 tbsp ginger paste
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp raw papaya juice

130gm sliced onions
100gm yogurt

For the spice mix :-

2 tbsp heaped grated coconut
1 tbsp poppy seeds
2 blades of mace
3 green cardamom
1.5 inch cinnamon
4 cloves
4 whole dried Kashmiri Red Chilies
2 fiery hot dried red chili (choose a variant which is hot)

100gm clarified butter

Marinate the meat in raw papaya juice and ginger garlic paste for about 3 hours to 4 hours.

Heat the ghee and fry the sliced onions on low to medium heat till its golden brown. take care not to overbrown it. Add the meat and immediately lower heat to absolute low , cover and cook for 30 minutes. Keep it on low heat throughout.

Now whisk the curd well and add it to the meat and stir continuously till it forms a homogeneous mixture.

Now take the ingredients of the spice mixture and leaving aside the fresh grated coconut dry roast the rest and let it slightly cool down and make a dry mixture, add the coconut and grind further and then keep it aside.

When you have cooked the meat for 1 hour from the time you started cooking it add the spice mixture and salt  and lower heat sprinkle water and cover and cook for another 45 minutes to 1 hour till the meat is cooked through.

Keep sprinkling water and stirring every 15 minutes.

Once cooked cover and let the meat rest for 15 minutes and serve with hot piping rice

The resting period is crucial for better flavour and texture of meat.

A bit of lahore, a bit of Eastern India and a bit of pan India

DINNER IDEA 1 

The big Navami Spread of 2013

So the four days of Durgotsav in Calcutta is spent by most peopel hopping from one pandal to the other and dining out and meting people. While I did meet people I decided to do what fulfills me the most, preparing  dishes in the kitchen and sharing it with my guests.

Navami was a special day with two sets of guests for lucnha nd dinner. While lunch was a simple affair of masoor pulse with coconut with bhetki macher kalia (bhetki fish in a rich curry) , dinner was more grandeur in nature with Fish fries and fluffy Basmati rice , grilled chicken , Mutton lazeez handi and malpuas.

So I start off with the grilled chicken. A long time ago Seema Chanda had interviewed a composed confident chef from the streets of Lucknow about the secrets of their juicy kebabs to which he mentioned that the only secret was long hours of marination. It seems marination is the key to the success of a kebab. While in modern times most homes do not have the luxury of a charcoal grill or even a barbeque and since in India we have to do with grills which do not let the temperature to be set unless you use the convection mode, the marination is even more so important.

The Grilling and filling 

I used this marination of salt and pepper, garlic, lemon ,curd and cumin along with a pinch of garam masala and let the chicken soak up the goodness of the marination for a good 7 to 8 hours. It is even more effective when marinated and kept overnight or for 48 hours.

I grilled it for 15 minutes on one side and 12 minutes on the other. From my past experiences it is clear that 20 minutes on one side and 15 on the other renders the chicken too hard. So if you have a grill like mine with no option to set the temperature, you can either use the convection mode and bake or practice and know which timing suits your oven the best.

Along with this was a sauce made of red chilies soaked in vinegar for 2 hours which was blend with garlic and hung curd, slat , pepper and a wee bit of cumin powder. The result was truly delicious.

The Fish fry that we all fry and love

Fish Fry

Bangalir Priyo Dal (Bengal's favourite pulse) 

Mooger Dal

Bhetki Macher Kalia 

Mooger dal 

Bhetki Macher kalia

Bhetki Macher Kalia

Mutton Lazeez Handi 

Mutton Lazeez hundi

Soft syrupy malupas 

Malpua

Mutton Lazeez Hundi : tender oh so tender , delicious oh so delicious

So here is what happens when you take up a massive project. Lunch for 4 with no help in the kitchen and a dinner for 4 as well. The cook was given holidays the grandmother went away on a trip to Sambalpur, I took up the entire responsibility of lunch and dinner with two different guests for each meal and the only help was the mother going to the market. Thank God for that. Now here is what happens when your mother hardly knows her way around the kitchen. You organize work and well hope your guests like em all but with the chaos forget to document your dishes step by step because there is the larger task of making sure your guests go back happy .

While my first guest was a lovely gentle lady my guest for the night was a food connoisseur which made me a little bit nervous, but then I shook off my nervousness and chop, lock , stock it was.

So,  a dinner party without red meat is considered unforgivable by my father so quite naturally there had to be a meat dish. I will be honest here,  I like experimenting, so no matter how successful my previous dishes might have been I like trying out new dishes and so went on a recipe hunt and the description of the Lamb lazeez Hundi on NDTV's site was too tempting to resist. I made a few changes such as using half the amount of ghee because well who needs 500gm of ghee for kilogram of meat? Maybe some do but having made enough number of dishes and considering  the fact that both my father's and the guest's age  I reduced it down to 250gm. The result was fantastic. The meat was deliciously soft due to a certain easy trick up my sleeves, the guest was happy and delighted and a very happy father who still believes in "praise the child spoil their future"

So I am very new to this world of blogging and though with time have become much more blogger friendly by capturing each and every picture etc in October I was still quite naive and so had not taken pictures because wanting to serve it hot form the pot I started cooking the meat exactly at 6 p.m. , 3 hours prior to the appointed meal time.

So these are requirements:

900gm of goat meat
250gm of ghee
5 chopped onions
1.5 heaped tablespoonful of thick ginger paste
1.5 heaped tablespoonful of thick garlic paste
3 large bay leaves
4 to 5 green cardamom
Cinnamon stick, now I can never give the exact metric measurement but say when ground it should yield 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tsp mace
2 tsp dried ginger powder (sonth)
5 to 6 tomatoes
2 cups yogurt whisked into  smoothness
4 tablespoonful of cream

Here is where I made some chnages. I did marinate my meat for about 3 hours even though the recipe did not call for it with half the amount of ginger garlic paste and salt.
Heat the ghee and add the finely sliced onions and fry till golden brown. Add remaining ginger garlic paste. Add all the spices. I pound the spices roughly before adding them. add tomato paste which has been blanched and skinned and bring to slow boil and simmer till the oil comes out stirring from time to time.
Add mutton and mix well and cook for 5 to 10 minutes stirring continuously and add about 1 litre of water. Now the recipe had asked you to cover and cook for 30 minutes for meat to become tender. I cooked for an hour and yet the meat was not of the  melt in the mouth texture and so I used this trick which will really help you. I put everything in a pressure cooker and put it on low flame. It took about 45 minutes for the first whistle. Then I transferred it back in my big wok and brought it to a boil and added the yogurt very quickly while continuously stirring to make sure the yogurt does not split. It did not, this was a helpful hint from the original recipe. Cooked it on low heat till the gravy became nice and thick. Served it with the cream on top.

Ah doesn't it make you feel extra special when a dish you cook becomes a raging hit especially with a connoisseur :)

This dish is truly fit for a Lahori Prince. The subtraction of the ghee did not make any difference it was still very rich and well with the mutton's fat it was delicious