Ingredients
- 1 Kilo lamb/goat mutton thigh meat.
- 1 teaspoon asafoetida (Hing).
- 1 tablespoon full white cumin seeds.
- 2 teaspoon Kashmiri Red Chili powder (Kashmiri Lal or Deggi Mirch).
- 1 Tablespoon Fennel seed powder.
- 1 pinch Turmeric powder.
- 5 Green cardamoms. (3 normal and 2 very small ones)
- 2 black cardamoms (prefer both smaller in size to avoid overpowering).
- A pinky sized cinnamon stick.
- 5-6 cloves.
- 2-3 tablespoon desi ghee (clarified butter, I used 3).
- Salt to taste (basically 1 tablespoon).
- 300 ml water.
- 1½ tablespoon saunth (dry ginger powder).
- 2-3 table spoon curd (yoghurt).
Preparation
- Crush cinnamon, black& green cardamoms along with cumin seeds and cloves using a mortar and pestle. Let me name it ‘exotic spice’ for ease of recipe purpose.
- Wash mutton well and dry it.
- Crush one teaspoon zeera/jeera (white cumin seeds) along with 2 very green cardamoms and keep it separate.
- Crush the hing (Asafoetida, if you are using blocks).
- Boil the water.
Method
- Use a pressure cooker and add 3 tablespoons of desi ghee.
- Add asafoetida (Hing).
- Add crushed cinnamon, black& green cardamoms along with cumin seeds and cloves to the ghee.
- When this looks well crisped and bit darker and golden-brown in shade, add mutton.
- Keep frying until you start seeing bones and mutton both separate individuals (i.e. when mutton starts shrinking) or when mutton starts turning pale.
- Add salt.
- Add chili powder once salt is well mixed.
- Add curd once chili powder is well mixed.
- Cook on medium flame for 5 minutes (or when you see the whiteness of curd disappears).
- Add fennel seed powder, turmeric and saunth.
- Give a good mix, add boiling water and give another good mix.
- Cover the pressure cooker with its lid.
- Once you cover the lid of pressure cooker, put burner flame to high.
- After first whistle, simmer down the burner flame.
- After third whistle on sim or roughly after 25 minutes, turn off the cooker.
- Let it sit for at-least 8-10 minutes.
- By this time, the pressure may also have gone.
- Sprinkle the extra crushed cumin seeds and cardamom.
- Done and ready to be served!
Tip:
- Do not worry about lots of Ghee, it won’t over power the taste. If you are health conscious, you may use any oil you think is good for you other than coconut oil. Mustard oil as a replacement also works well.
- If butcher is an expert, buy neck meat or shoulder. I have used leg.
- I find hing (Asafoetida) from Lahul-Spiti to be of very good quality, so I use it. They have two varieties mainly, dry one and sticky one. Sticky one is a better one in my opinion, however it totally depends on the recipe. Here I am using a dry block.
- Turmeric is used so that red chili powder doesn’t lose its consistency in redness. It is not an essential ingredient.
- You may use half liters of water in order to have more gravy, but really not recommended.
- The timings mentioned above for cooking works good in case of goat meat. In case of lamb meat, deduct 5 minutes.
- While, you serve, you may see, the gravy is less. Actually it is the way it should be, since you are technically going to eat ghee, which you already know how much you are going to put on a plate of rice.
- Serve it with only rice (Kashmiri thick rice or Basmati) along with curd and Gand chetin (Kashmiri onion salad).
- Have Walnut cake to end your course along with Kashmiri Kehwa or Kashmiri salted tea.
Bon Appétit!