Mutton Karahi

 I love gatherings. But if you think that I am a party person..you are horribly wrong!! I am a highly unsocial person with conceptually negative sense of humor. But here when my husband calls his friends I enjoy that. Because no one is there to force me to start a conversation. I can be me. I can take a book and sit in the corner of the sofa and read that while others will be chatting or sipping a drink or watching the t.v. Watching a full fledged on going party in front of me and at the same time not feeling lonely and out of the water gives me a chance to be me. I love that atmosphere as much as I love to cook for them.

So...yesterday we had such a gathering and I cooked all day to prepare for them. As soon as I finished cooking people came and after everything was over I was so exhausted that immediately I went to sleep without even removing my makeup. This Mutton Karahi I made yesterday for the dinner. Generally we plan such gatherings on Saturday night because then I will have a helping hand on Sunday in clearing up the mess. But since one of them was leaving for India on Monday we had no choice.

Mutton Karahi
Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 300gm mutton (with bone is better)
• 2 large onion - thinly sliced
• 2 medium tomatoes - paste/thinly sliced
• 4 green onion - chopped (you can reduce it if you don't like so spicy)
• 1 small bunch of fresh coriander leaves - coarsely chopped
• few mint leaves - corsely chopped
• 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 7-8 black peppercorns
• 2 dried red chili
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• few fenugreek leaves
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tsp red chili powder
• 1 cup yogurt/heavy creme
• salt
• 4 tbsp oil
• 10 gm butter

Method:

• Wash the pieces of mutton very carefuly removing all the dirts and blood.
• Path them with a dry cloth and keep them aside.
• Heat oil in a pan.
• Put the onion in it and saute.
• When they become translucent add the ginger-garlic paste.
• Saute until the onions become golden brown and the rawness of the smell of the ginger-garlic paste is gone.
• Add the tomatoes and stir.
• When the tomatoes are half cooked add the turmeric and red chili powder along with a little salt.
• When the tomatoes are full cooked add the mutton pieces.
• Mix with the tomato-onion paste evenly so that they cover each and every pieces.
• Now you can slow cook them or you can transfer the entire dish into a pressure cooker and cook them.
• If you are slow cooking then you have to add the masala when the mutton pieces are half cooked. Stir in between and add water if the dish becomes dry before the meat is cooked.
• If you are putting them into a pressure cooker then you have to put the masala slightly after putting the meat pieces. Evenly mix the masala with the mixture and then transfer. Add water if the dish has become dry. Cook in pressure until the cooker blows 10 whistles. After that do not open the lid right away. Let the air let out in its own way. It will take some time but the meat will become tender in the steam inside. 
• For the masala dry roast the whole spices adding the fenugreek leaves last. Then grind them to a fine powder.
•  When the meat is properly cooked add the yogurt/heavy cream and mix with the gravy properly.
• Let it simmer for some minutes and add the chopped coriander and mint leaves.
• Add the butter.
• Taste and adjust the seasoning.
• If you have any masala left add it to the meat at this point.
• Simmer for some minutes or until you have reached your desired consistency of the gravy.
• Put off the flame and serve with naan or just plain rice.:)