Mutton Curry my style

For me mutton is THE most tastiest meat of all if you cook it with strong spices, lot of oil and in a slow cooking process. Be it mutton keema , curry or even a mutton chop tastes heaven. Though we don't eat this meat more often due to health reasons, this sunday we decided to cook mutton curry almost after 5 years. And we realised we still love to eat this meat a lot. House was smelling great with the aroma of all spices and the curry tasted just finger-licking  with the awesome colour. Once in a month or two this kind of indulgence is definitely allowed irrespective of my health issue ;)

I am definitely very happy today to share my recipe of mutton curry with all of you dear friends.

Ingredients:

Mutton: 500 gms evenly cut pieces cleaned and washed properly
Onion: 5 medium sized roughly chopped
Garlic: 1 whole medium sized
Ginger: 1 pc medium sized
Dry chillies: 2-3
Bay leaf: 3
Cinnamon stick, Cardamom & clove:: 4-5 of each pitted a bit
Turmeric powder: 2 tsp
Red chilli powder: 1 1/2 heap tsp
Cumin Powder: 1 1/2 heap tsp
Coriander powder: 1 heap tsp
MEat Masala : 3 tsp
Garam masala powder: 1 heap tsp
Salt to taste
Mustard oil: 1 tbsp. for marination & 4 tbsp. for the curry
Fresh coriander leaf: add as much as you like once it is ready. I was out of stock that day :)

Method:

In a bowl take the washed mutton pieces and marinate with 1 tbsp. mustard oil, salt & 1 tsp turmeric and keep aside for about half an hour.

Grind the onion, garlic, ginger in a grinder . Don't make a runny paste.

Heat a deep bottomed kadhai/pan. Put the marinated mutton in it and mix well and keep it on medium flame stirring in between until and unless all the water from the meat dries out and  the mutton gets dry & take a dark brown colour. Once done keep this in a bowl.

In the same kadhai/pan, heat the mustard oil. Add dry chillies, bay leaves, cinnamon, cardamom, clove and allow them to splutter. Now add the onion  & ginger-garlic mixture into this. Fry  them until they become brown in colour. Don't skip this step please. Start adding the dry masalas - turmeric, coriander, cumin, red chilli powder and mix all well. Fry them till they release oil. Now add the marinated mutton, combine all well keeping the flame from low-medium. Cover with lid and let it cook slowly. Keep checking & stirring in between so that the mutton doesn't get stick to the bottom of the pan. This will really take a lot of time so you need to have patience at this stage, so don't add water to fasten the cooking process. After some time add the meat masala and mix all well. This will take you about say 15-18 minutes. This slow cooking process will help all the masala to go inside the meat and also slowly gives that colour to it.

Add about 1 & 1/2 cup of water, stir and cover with the lid. Bring it to boil, add the garam masala , salt, mix and keep on medium flame for about another 7-10 minutes. Now transfer this to the pressure cooker . Add some water again if you find it dry or thickened up. This will require around 7-8 whistles in the cooker depending on the quality of the mutton. Mine took exactly 10 . First I allowed it to whistle 6 times. As it was not cooked properly I put it back on the flame again for another 4 numbers of whistles.  Once done, allow the pressure to release on its own. Now if you want to thicken your gravy more, then transfer it to the pan/kadhai and keep on flame, keep stirring in between till you get the desired thickness of the gravy. We like it as curry only so I didn't thicken it. 

Serve this delicious mutton curry hot with rice or chapati and enjoy.