methi gosht: or, dammit i dont have a pressure cooker

yesterday made huge wok-ful of methi gosht (v troublesome) and to go with it, rotis. i think i am getting lots better at making them, i crumbled in small amount of ghee into the atta+salt. squidge squidge to look like breadcrumbs. then mixed hot water with the watery bit of my yogurt (whey?) that i made ages ago plus some squidgy amounts of the curd, added that to the atta and squidge all together and let it rest. the dough gets a lot less sticky after resting cos i guess the flour takes a while to absorb the water properly.

here's the recipe, plus my notes when i changed things about. i have a suspicion that saner people would usually just have this dish in a restaurant or special occasions cos it is huge hassle to cook.

Ingredients

1 kg Goat chops or shoulder meat (think i had less than 1kg. like, 600g or something. two flat plastic tray things of chopped mutton. DUNO! ANYHOW GUESS)
1 kg onions (two big spanish onions)
500 gms ripe tomatoes ( boil for 15 minutes & make paste ) (used 1.5 tins of whole tomatoes (400g tins)
250 gms fresh methi leaves ( washed & dried, no stems) (this was super trublesome, removing leaves from stems cos i had two bundles frozen. i sprinkled salt and let it sit then squoze out the moisture tho, cos read somewhere else that it would remove bitterness or something.)
50 gms ginger (why do these recipes use weight. WTFHFH. used 3cmx6cm piece)
50 gms garlic (used 3/4 bulb)
50 gms green chillies (used 3 fat-ish crap tesco chillies)
100 gm Dhana Jeera powder (not sure how much i put in, just added by taste but roughly 2:1 ratio of dhana to jeera. probably added like. 6 tablespoons to 3 tablespoons? ehehe. LOTS.)
25 gms each cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns
2 tbsp oil

Method

1. Make a coarse paste of ginger, garlic & chillies(wet mix).
2. Grind all the dry spices to powder(dry mix).
3. Marinate meat with the half of wet & dry mixes. Refrigerate for 1/2 day. (never did this. thought meat was fine. chucked in spices into the braising liquid to help out at least)
   
4. Pressure cook meat for 20 minutes & retain all the juices. (left it slow cooking-ish, covered, for 2+, 3 hours?)
5. Poke a knife in the meat to check if it is semi cooked. (didnt bother)
   
6. Finely chop onions & fry over slow heat till golden brown( oil floats on top).
   
7. The frying process is key to best taste & could take upto 1 hour (this is the bit that took ages. i suppose it wasnt too bad cos i was cooking the meat at the same time.)
   
8. Add methi leaves, dhana jeera powder & fry for 5 minutes (two bundles methi, supplemented by 3 small frozen spinach patty things)
   
9. Add tomato paste & meat with juices.
10. Cook over slow heat till water separates, evaporate & finally oil floats on top. Should take 30 minutes. (v hard to stir cos wok was superrfull. left it to cook open til it dried out a bit cos mike doesnt like gravy soupyish)
    
11. Add salt & lime to taste. (by this time he was home so made mike squeez half a big angmor lime)

the recipe is not very detailed cos it's from some random Patel here. like, it doesnt say what you should do with the rest of the wet/dry spice mixes. wtf. so i just mixed it into the onion. end result was some very thick dark green (from the chilli) paste. i took like, two photos to show mike when he got back.

just after i put onion puree in (above) and the mutton (below). there is also huge shiny pot of beef stock on the other hob. the area was still messy after thai yellow chicken curry the night before.


didnt eat much of the food i made cos like, tired then no appetite. but good, mike et a lot cos he was out training while i cooked. i FEED HIM ALL. i described the recipe and he thinks i insane to go through it all. walao. else not authentic. we were inspired to cookit after having it in a restaurant. we did find some other recipes which were like, because i'm familiar enough with the spicing of indian dishes the other recipes didnt look like they would taste right.

here's the methi gosht finished. the bottle is mango chutney, and the newspaper is to protect our much-abused coffee table from powerful spices. by this time i had no more energy and mike said my photo not well-taken but i didnt care cos exhausteddakf;dskfdkflf. turned out really nice. rich spicy methitomatoey. was better leftover today. i swear many indian dishes are not worth eating on the same day cos letting it sit overnight makes the flavours blend and mellow.