Even as I prepared to write the second part of my post, I happened to land on an essay, On Writing (and Not Writing) About Mutton Biryani, in Lithub magazine, by writer Nandita Dinesh. When you are facing a wave of grief and regret — regret at not having learnt cooking (in Nandita’s case) from one’s grandmother or not having recording a family recipe (in my case), other issues (patriarchal traditions, for instance) recede into the background. When I write this, the issue of eating meat vs. plant-based food becomes a tiny blip. After my mother died, in 2020, I rued not having written down her recipes in a notebook. One reason we drag our feet over such a project is, deep in our hearts, we want our mothers or grandmothers to live indefinitely. Recording information feeds our secret fear.
I pieced together my mother’s fried mutton by groping my memory and asking my aunt — as though scraping together a puzzle. About the cooking method, one of the primary thoughts that occurred — when I analyzed it from the perspective of a better-read cook — is that the mutton is twice-cooked. Often we find such a method in recipes: cooked on stovetop and finished in the oven or, like French fries, fried twice, often at different temperatures. Mother’s Fried Mutton is first pressure-cooked and then fried in ghee on stovetop, the fat absorbing the caramelized flavor of meat and red chilies.
Mother’s Fried Mutton
500 gm mutton (goat meat or lamb)
1 small onion
5-6 cloves of garlic
1-inch piece of fresh ginger
1/2 cup of ghee
10 pepper corns
4-5 whole dry red chilies (any variety, depending on your heat tolerance)
Salt to taste
Make a paste of onion, garlic and ginger by grinding them together in a blender or food processor.
Marinate the mutton with the paste, mixed with the salt, for at least an hour in the refrigerator. Cook the mutton, along with the paste, 3/4 cup of water, and pepper corns until just tender, preferably in a pressure cooker, 20-25 minutes on medium heat. If you do not have a pressure cooker, you can use any pot on stovetop, but you would need to cook longer (about an hour) and use more water (1 cup), checking once in a while for doneness. If using a pressure cooker, allow the pressure to subside and drain the mutton, reserving the stock.
Heat ghee in kadhai or wok, and add chilies. Deep-fry the mutton on low-to-medium heat in batches until browned until brown.
Serve with steamed white rice, along with the flavored ghee from the kadhai drizzled on top of each serving.
Optional: If you prefer a little sauce to go with the rice, add about half a cup of the stock, strained, to the fried mutton and simmer for five minutes in the kadhai.
Yield: 4 servings
If you do make the mutton or if you have questions, please post in the Comments section.
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