Laal Ghosht – Andhra Style

You know, there are these awesome food groups on Facebook where you can talk about everything to do with food under the Sun! You learn about new places, ingredients and even get authentic recipes if asked for. One such group is the Mumbai Gourmet Club. I’ve been obsessed with making curries of all kinds and posting them on the blog (as you can see with the Kori Rotti, Butter Chicken, Thai Curry) and yesterday I decided to find the recipe for Laal Maas – a quintessential Rajasthani dish.

But, what I got, rather serendipitously, was the recipe of a spicy, red mutton curry Andhra Style. A fellow foodie Atul Kaul was the one who came to my aid and gave me this very interesting recipe using almost 60 red chillies for 1 kg of mutton! Rather skeptical but very excited to try out the dish, I went ahead.

What I was most excited about during the preparation of the dish is when you mix all the spices and powders together with the yoghurt and then top that with smoking roasted cumin seeds, the flavour of the cumin is woven right into the DNA of the dish!

Print Recipe

Laal Ghosht - Mutton with Red Chillies and Yoghurt

A spicy mutton gravy leaving you wanting more...

Course

main course

Cuisine

south indian

Prep Time

30 minutes

Cook Time

60 minutes

Servings

people

Ingredients

• 1 kg mutton boneless chunks
• 250 gm curd preferably fresh, mixed with a little water to reduce its thickness
• 60 dry long red chillies de-tailed & de-seeded. (keep the chilies whole lengthwise, it adds to the visual beauty of the dish)
• 8 medium garlic cloves minced fine
• 8 medium onions sliced in thin rings
• 3 tsp cumin seeds
• salt to taste
• 9 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp haldi powder

Course main course Cuisine south indian Prep Time 30 minutes Cook Time 60 minutes Servings people Ingredients 1 kg mutton boneless chunks 250 gm curd preferably fresh, mixed with a little water to reduce its thickness 60 dry long red chillies de-tailed & de-seeded. (keep the chilies whole lengthwise, it adds to the visual beauty of the dish) 8 medium garlic cloves minced fine 8 medium onions sliced in thin rings 3 tsp cumin seeds salt to taste 9 tsp coriander powder 1 tsp haldi powder

Instructions

1. Take a heavy-bottomed kadhai or Patila; melt enough desi ghee, add the garlic once the ghee is hot. Keep on a slow flame allowing the garlic to brown uniformly.
2. Once done, add the onion rings, mix well, cover and leave to cook on a medium flame.
3. In the meanwhile, refresh the de-tailed, de-seeded chillies in water for 15 minutes, drain and add to the curd.
4. Also add part salt, all haldi and all dhania powder to curd and mix well. Brown all the jeera seeds till they start smoking and add to the curd while still smoking. Mix well and keep aside.
5. Once the onions get semi-dehydrated, reduced and browned, add the mutton pieces, balance the salt, cook again on a medium flame while keeping it covered.
6. Keep tossing and turning at regular intervals to cook the mutton evenly.
7. Once the mutton browns, add the curd mixture to the kadhai, mix well, reduce flame to minimum, see how much gravy you want, add water if needed.
8. Cover with a dish to keep the steam from escaping, put enough water on the lid and a weight on the lid as well. This is dum cooking!
9. Every 20 minutes, remove water, open lid, toss & turn the mutton. Do this thrice.
10. After approx 80-90 mins of dum, this will be ready to freak you out (the chef may also be wobbling drunk by then, but this is a mere occupational hazard).
11. Serve with naan, pao or any thick roti (in Mumbai we prefer rice bhakri)

Share this Recipe