At the very beginning, know that this isn’t the classic recipe. Given the primary ingredients, I had no choice but to name it so.
I do like this recipe, because I used to look at such dishes and think it certainly must take quite a while to cook it and also need a load of preparation. As we found out, it doesn’t have to.
Ingredients:
- Boneless meat, 1 kg, soaked in mild brine for an hour
- Dhania-Lal Mirch masala, 2 tbsp
- Red Chilies, 2 – 3 pieces, dried
- Mushrooms, 1 cup, finely chopped
- Ginger garlic paste, 1 tbsp
- Black peppercorns, 3 tbsp, pounded
- Onions, 1 medium, finely sliced
- Salt to taste
- Lemon juice to taste
- Oil to cook
Method:
- Add washed meat to a pressure cooker with a little salt and cook until tender. Use your own estimation please. I use a Hawkins Futura and it took about 20 minutes, though this will vary from cooker to cooker and meat to meat. Reserved drained meat, use water someplace else, like making rajma for instance.
- Fry onions, add the ginger garlic paste, fry a bit more, add the dhania-lal mirch masala and fry some more, add the mushrooms, red chilies and black pepper and fry for a bit more.
- Add the meat and keep frying on high heat until the color of the whole concoction deepens and the masala tastes cooked.
- Squeeze on a generous amount of lemon juice. Season.
- Serve hot
Notes:
- A bowl of thick (half hung, half normal) curd on the side will taste good.
- If you’re going to use chicken, use thighs and skip pressure cooking. Instead, just keep going on a lower flame until the chicken is cooked. If you use breast in this process, it is likely to dry out.
- Use any red meat you want.
- If you want to lower the spice, start with reducing the dhania-lal mirch masala a bit, then the pepper, then the dhania-lal mirch masala again, and then the pepper. Reducing chili heat this way will keep the basic nature/flavour of the dish as well as bring down the spiciness.