An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [31]
Next add the mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Mix and cook slowly for 5 minutes. Stir every now and then.
Now add ½ cup water, the salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and browned meat, as well as the juices that have accumulated. Bring to a boil. Cover. Lower heat and simmer gently for 30 minutes.
If you want to remove the fat, skim it off as it rises to the top.
Put the pecans and almonds in a blender with 3 tablespoons of water, and blend at high speed until you have a smooth paste. You may need to stop and push down with a rubber spatula a few times.
Add the nut paste, then the sour cream, to the meat. Stir and check the salt. Bring to a boil, cover, lower heat, and simmer gently for 25 to 30 minutes or until meat is tender.
Peel the cardamoms, discarding the skin. Crush the seeds with a heavy mortar and pestle or put them through a clean pepper grinder.
To serve: Place the meat and gravy in a wide bowl. Garnish with ground cardamom seeds, chopped Chinese parsley, and the fried onions. Serve with hot chapatis or parathas, or almost any rice dish. Cabbage, green beans, and carrot dishes would go well with this korma. For a relish, choose something with raw onions and tomato.
Lamb cooked in dark almond sauce (badami roghan josh)
SERVES 4–6
Roghan josh is a traditional North Indian Muslim dish. It has a thick dark nutty sauce made with almonds and roasted cumin, coriander, and coconut. Even though shoulder of lamb is used here, you could use leg, neck, or shank. Stewing beef may also be substituted.
2 pounds boned meat from shoulder of lamb, cubed into 1-inch pieces
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 whole cloves
1–2 whole dried hot red peppers (optional)
12 peppercorns
6 whole cardamom pods
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1 tablespoon desiccated unsweetened coconut
3 tablespoons blanched almonds, coarsely chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
A piece of fresh ginger, about 1-inch cube, peeled and coarsely chopped
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground mace
2 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely minced
3 tablespoons plain yogurt
½ cup tomato sauce
1½ teaspoons salt
Wipe the meat well with paper towels.
Heat the oil in a 10–12-inch skillet. When the oil is hot, add the cloves, red peppers, peppercorns, and cardamom. Stir them for a few seconds until they puff up and darken.
Now put in 7 or 8 pieces of meat at a time to brown. When each lot is brown on all sides, remove with a slotted spoon to a large flameproof covered casserole, taking care to leave the spices in the skillet. Continue to brown all the meat this way and set aside. Turn off flame under skillet.
You have to roast some spices now, so take out your heaviest iron-type skillet (I keep a small one just for this purpose). Put the cumin, coriander, coconut, and almonds in it. Turn heat on medium and roast, stirring, for about 5 minutes or until spices turn a coffee color. Turn off heat and pour roasted spices and nuts into container of electric blender. Add chopped garlic and ginger.
With a slotted spoon, lift out the fried spices in the oil and put them in the blender container too. Add the turmeric, nutmeg, mace, and 8 tablespoons water. Blend at high speed until you have a smooth, thick paste. You may need to stop the blender and push down with a rubber spatula.
In the same skillet in which the lamb cooked, fry the onions over high heat, stirring and scraping up the juices for about 5 minutes, or until they turn dark in spots. Then lower heat to medium and add paste from blender. Stir and fry for another 5 minutes, gradually adding the yogurt, a tablespoon at a time.
Now add the tomato sauce and ½ cup water. Bring to a boil. Cover, lower heat, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Put the meat into this sauce. Add the salt and stir. Bring to a boil, cover, lower heat, and simmer gently for 1 hour. Stir a few times at it cooks.
To serve: Place in a warm dish, cover, and take to the table. Roghan josh goes very well with pooris or chapatis and Rice