Mutton Saagwala for the Popeye of My Life

Its summer here. Which means we have an abundance of everything. Including spinach. But before that, take a look at the more colorful summerlicious moments I managed to see with my lenses.

Now for the recipe for Mutton Saagwala, loosely translated as mutton (a generic term in India for goat meat) cooked in spinach. A healthy, delicious meat curry most often cooked in winters in India by many North Indian families. It has strange resembles to Palak Paneer.

Well, my two cents are that this dish could possibly be palak paneer for the hardcore mutton lovers.

Ingredients for Mutton Saagwala are:

1 kg goat meat/mutton (I buy the shoulder portion with enough marbling from my butcher lady)
400 grams spinach, cleaned, washed, and chopped coarsely, stem and leaves, and pureed with little water
1 small can of tomato paste
1 large, juicy red tomato, pureed
1 large red onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons freshly ground cumin powder
2 tablespoons pureed garlic
2 tablespoons pureed ginger
2 tablespoons green chili paste
1 teaspoon red chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder (black+green cardamoms, cloves and cinnamon)
3-4 tablespoons ghee
Julienned ginger for garnish
6-7 dry red chilies for garnish
A few shavings of (frozen) unsalted butter for garnish
Salt

 
Start by heating the ghee in a large pan. Once it is really hot, add the onions and sauté till lightly browned. Add the meat. Make sure there is no moisture/water in the meat. This will help you get a nice, brown color to the mutton.

Add the green chili paste, cumin and garam masala powders to the meat and let it cook on low heat, covered all the time for 10 minutes.

Now add the pureed ginger and garlic, season with salt (I use sea salt), mix, cover and cook for another 10 minutes.

Scrape the spices and onions from the bottom of the pan and let them cling on to the mutton.

Add the pureed spinach, red chili powder and turmeric to the meat and mix. Crank the heat up to medium and let the pureed spinach bubble for about 10 minutes. Once you have spinach splinters attacking you, add the tomato paste and puree and cook covered for 10-15 minutes on low heat.

You will see the change of color in this dish – from a bright, green to a moss-colored. Slowly, but surely a thin line of oil will appear at the sides of your cooking pan. At this point, you have a choice of adding your work-in-progress Mutton Saagwala to the pressure cooker to cook through the mutton. I did that and waited till two whistles went off to cook my mutton.

Transfer the Mutton Saagwala to a serving dish and garnish generously with shavings of unsalted butter, julienned ginger and dry red chilies. You can add some green ones too for added heat and color.

Serve Mutton Saagwala with warm chapatis and salad. A meal like this should be consumed by keeping quiet, and listening to your own chomps and burps. Meals like this also make a family less cranky and more happy. I have proof. My almost-two-year-old sealed my Mutton Saagwala with her stamp of approval by saying “nice” and “wow”, all in the same breath in between her dinner.

Enjoy! 

Seduction on a Plate

Have you ever wondered how these self-announced culinary goddesses look absolutely ravishing in their kitchen spaces, day after day, show after show. Not a strand of hair out of place, not even a laughter line showing. They look sexy with their mouths full and their bodies look as if they stopped growing after 16! Nigella Lawson of course is an exception.

They have come-hither looks, husky voices, manicured nails, and botoxed assets as kitchen arsenals. I wonder how all their cook wares look so shiny (must be the sponsors!), stovetops spotless, kitchens gorgeous, pantries full and people like you and me eating out off their palms. Well, almost.

I know I am no Nigella or Giada, not even shortcut queen -Rachel Ray. But sometimes away from public eye, I pretend to be one. Yes, I convince myself that I am the domestic diva who can whip out meal after meal everyday, sometimes twice a day! Though its another story that a lot of the times, I spill, overcook, follow recipe books, make frantic calls to the mother, serve leftovers, or conveniently order take out.

Till about a few years ago, I even used to talk to myself, pretending I was hosting some food show. Well, that delusion hasn’t stopped altogether. Except that now, I also have a camera in my kitchen. I am also contemplating about shedding my PJs and slipping into fashionable clothes, curling up my hair and batting mascaraed eyelashes the next time I step inside my kitchen. Some day soon. Very soon. Till then, keep coming back to check on me and my un-sexy home cooked meals.

Today I made my usual, to-be-patented winter staple of clear tomato soup and served with croutons made of French baguette and Spanish Chorizo sausages. They paired well with a light salad made of baby spinach, arugula, red cabbage, sliced avocado, red bell pepper, generous shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano and a good drizzle of EVOO (just the way Rachel Ray says it!). For the uninitiated, EVOO is Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

If you cannot find baguette, take any long-thin bread and make even slices of it, preferably with a serrated knife. Drizzle olive oil. Slice the sausages too to fit on the bread.

Preheat your oven to 350°F, and leave the breads to turn into golden, crusty croutons topped with melt-in-the-mouth sausages.


For the salad I just tossed in everything at the very last minute and served in individual bowls with freshly shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano, a dash of extra virgin olive oil, few squirts of lemon juice and some black pepper straight from the pepper mill.

Beat This Palak Paneer, Auntyji!

This one’s for the Aunty ji who frowned at me one day in the Lajpat Nagar Mother Dairy booth when she saw me pick a slab of readymade paneer. I think she even muttered something like – “Aaj kal ke bachche mehnat toh karna hee nahin chahte.” (English connotation: Today’s generation is a bunch of lazy asses.)

Well, Aunty ji, this “aaj kal ki ladki” is now all grown up and also has some time on her hand. Not to mention living in a country where she has to travel 12 clicks to reach to the closest place which sells paneer.

I guess this is inspiration enough to satiate my paneer buds, and make this Indian cheese at home from scratch. No, it did not taste like Styrofoam. And yes, Aunty ji, to do you proud I even got the correct "pressing weight : to time" ratio the key to making spongy paneer! I even have proof, incase you were thinking I am all faff! Here, have a look!
The versatility of paneer baffles even the best of home cooks! But I stuck to the traditional Palak Paneer (paneer cooked in spinach) which not quite surprisingly is a substitute for meat in many vegetarian North Indian / Punjabi homes. On its own, paneer gives a cook a whole lot of possibilities of flavors to play with. But sometimes you don’t really need a recipe, you should just have the basics right. Like garlic or ginger, with a blend of spices.

Palak Paneer is a dish which mirrors the nutrition value of the curdled milk and bumps up in the health quotient with fresh spinach thrown in. Here is how I made my traditional Palak Paneer, just to do Aunty ji proud.
 

Ingredients for Palak Paneer are:

300 grams homemade paneer, cut into cubes
400 grams fresh spinach, cleaned, washed and puréed with a couple of green chilies
1 medium size red onion, finely chopped
5-6 cloves fat cloves of garlic, minced
1 ripe red tomato, puréed
2 small cardamoms and 2 cloves, crushed
3-4 green chilies, slit lengthwise
1 teaspoon julienned ginger
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon red chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
A pinch of kasoori methi
2 tablespoons desi ghee
1 tablespoon heavy cream
A pinch of sugar
Salt

Heat the ghee in a pan and add the cumin seeds and crushed cardamoms and cloves. Sauté for a few seconds and add the chopped onions. Fry the onions till they turn golden brown, but not brown! This is when you add the minced garlic. Cook on medium heat for a couple of minutes and add the puréed spinach. Cook for about 3-4 minutes on low-medium heat, covered if you are getting drenched by squirts of spinach.
Now add the puréed tomato, turmeric and red chili powder. Cover and cook again for 5-7 minutes.
Let the spinach-tomato and spices cook till they lose their rawness. Season with sugar (optional) and salt. Gently release the cubes of paneer into the spinach gravy. You will also see the spinach gravy changing color to a lighter green than its original dark, rich green.
Mix gently so as not to break the pieces of paneer.
Add kasoori methi crushed between the palms of your hand. Cook for a couple of minutes more and turn the heat off. Drizzle a spoonful of heavy cream and garnish with julienned ginger and slit green chilies.

Serve piping hot with roti, naan or plain Basmati rice. Unless Aunty ji is making her famous jeera rice!

Labeo Rohita In Mustard Sauce, And Stir-Fried Greens On The Side

Of all the things I anticipated eating by being a Bengali is fish. How unpredictable!

If I recollect correctly, it was in grade eight that I learnt the biological name of rui maach is Labeo Rohita. I had a bad hand at science drawings then, so my grandmother or my little sister used to make all those diagrams for me - Rana Tigrina (frog), Rattus (rat), Ornithorhynchus Anatinus (platypus), or Periplaneta Americana (cockroach).

The only thing I have come gastronomically close to in the above mentioned living beings are frog legs, which upon picking up a packet at a Chinatown store, I quickly backtracked and went straight to the fruits and vegetables section. All my affinity for French and Cantonese cooking did not make me eat frogs for dinner.

But Rui (Rohu) or Labeo Rohita has remained with me since my childhood, in all its forms – jhaal, jhol, bhaja, chop, muri ghonto, just to name a few preparations.

I will concentrate on the jhaal today, which essentially has a mustard base and when literally translated means “hot”. Probably because of the two ingredients, mustard and green chilies which add an unmistakable zing to this dish. It also has a thicker consistency as compared to its cousin, the jhol which is rather runny.

For Rui Maacher Jhaal you will need:

4 pieces of Rohu fish
1 medium size tomato cut into thick slices
2 tablespoon fresh mustard (yellow) paste
Few green chilies, slit lengthwise
Few sprigs of coriander, chopped fine
2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon red chili powder
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
Mustard oil
Salt

Apply salt and turmeric powder to the pieces of fish and deep fry them in piping hot mustard oil. Keep aside.
I made my mustard paste at home by first dry grinding yellow mustard seeds in my blender and then adding a tablespoon of water to make a paste. The traditional way of doing it is on the stone grinder.
Take one tablespoon of the remaining mustard oil (leftover from the fried fish), heat it in a wide-mouthed pan. Add nigella seeds and sauté for a few seconds.
Add the sliced tomatoes and green chilies and cook for a few minutes.
Make a not-so-thin sauce with the mustard paste, a cup of water, one teaspoon turmeric powder, red chili powder and salt.

Add that to the tomatoes and green chilies. Cook this sauce or jhaal for 5-7 minutes on high flame till all the raw taste of the mustard goes away. Gently add the pieces of fried fish and cook it on high flame for 5-7 minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander.
Serve with plain white rice and some side, like this spinach stir fry (Shaak Bhaja) I made today.

2 cups very finely chopped spinach
2 teaspoon yellow moong dal
3-4 green chilies broken from the middle
1 dry red chili
2 tablespoon mustard oil
Sugar
Salt

Heat oil in a pan, add the moong dal and chilies.
Sauté for a couple of minutes and add the spinach.
Season with salt and sugar. Stir fry till the spinach wilts and all the moisture evaporates. A shaak bhaja like this is usually the first course of a Bengali meal. Its mixed with rice and eaten without complaining about being fed greens!