Masala Mutton - AFF Indian Subcontinent

At long last, I have gathered enough strength and courage to attempt a full blown Indian curry. Just look at the long list of ingredients.

This recipe comes from the book Banana Leaf Temptations  - The Complete Collection of Mouth Watering South Indian Recipes. I bought this cookbook many years ago because I love Indian curries especially the curries I eat at banana leaf restaurants. But one look at the recipes, I gave up without even trying. All I ever did till now was to flip through the book and as a result, this is what happened to the book :

The binding of this book is very poor.

This month's featured cuisine on Asian Food Festival is the Indian Subcontinent comprising the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sir Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. In support of the host, Alvin of Chef and Sommelier, I am finally cooking something from my tattered cookbook.

But I admit I was not very confident when I chose Masala Mutton as my first attempt.  I took long deep breaths, in, out, in, out, before I started. At the rate I was hyperventilating, you would think that I was going into labor. And oh, let me show you what I did in preparation for my month long Indian project :

I stocked up my pantry with spices and now I am raring to go! I love mutton curry but I had no idea what is the name of the mutton curry that I have eaten at the Indian restaurant. And looking at the many mutton curry recipes in the book, I chose this one for a start. There is no photo in the cookbook for this dish and when I googled, I found so many different looking Masala Mutton. Some were yellow and some were red and some were dark in color. I guess there are many variations of this masala and the one I cooked turned out to be yellow. At the early stages of cooking, I was quite worried because this was how the curry looked like :

And the smell was funny hah..hah...But when all the components were added into the curry, it started to smell better. But something was missing. I couldn't figure out what it was and I left the curry to simmer. When I came downstairs 45 minutes later, wow, the smell was really good. It was mutton curry smell. And it occurred to me that the missing factor was the smell of the mutton hah...hah....

I was quite happy with this curry but I think I will make a few adjustments in future just to suit my own taste. And of course I will post it again with my findings (yeah, like I'm so clever). So, I will leave you with the original recipe below. I followed it almost to a tee (except that I used candlenuts instead of cashew nuts and blanched almonds) as I did not dare to make any changes on my first attempt.

Masala Mutton
Recipe source : Banana Leaf Temptations (page 56)

Ingredients :
- 1 kg mutton pieces, preferably boneless
- 7 tbsp oil
- 2 cinnamon sticks (about 4 cm)    )
-10 cardamoms                                  )
- 5 cloves                                             ) ingredients for
- 2 tsp aniseed, coarsely pounded   ) frying
- 2 onions, sliced                                )
- a few curry leaves                          )
- 300 ml yogurt                        )
- 9 green chillies                       )      
- 12 cloves garlic                       ) Blend till 
- 1 cm piece ginger                   ) smooth (A)
- 4 large onions                         )
- 800 ml water                         )
- 60g cashew nuts                         )
- 30g blanced almonds                 )
- 400 ml thick coconut milk        )  Blend till
- 2.5 tbsp ground corriander       )   smooth (B)
-  2 level tsp ground turmeric     )
- 2 level tsp ground chilli             )
- 5 cardamoms                              )
- 6 large tomatoes, sliced
-  enough salt

Method :
1.  Heat oil and fry the ingredients for frying until very fragrant.
2. Add the mutton pieces and blended ingredients (A) and cook till mutton pieces are almost tender. (Use pressure cooker to save time)
3. Add the blended ingredients (B) and tomatoes and stir to mix well. Lower the heat and cook the mutton until it becomes tender and lots of oil surfaces. Add salt to taste.
4. Skim off the oil and serve with rice, thosai or idli.

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest - Indian Subcontinent hosted by Chef and Sommelier.