I've been itching to make Indian (or related food), and this was a recipe in a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook (From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail) that looked good, and not too difficult to put together on a weeknight. We do have time these days after all...
I will recap the modified recipe that we actually ended up making, since we didn't have exactly the correct ingredients to make it as written, and the recipe seemed like it was starting to go a bit off the rails part way through. We substituted pork shoulder for the lamb shoulder, since we had the one and aren't going out shopping for the other. We also used an onion instead of shallots. A very minor difference.
You start by sautéing a thinly sliced onion in some oil for about 5 minutes. When softened you add a 2-3 inch piece of finely grated ginger, 2 minced jalapeños, and 6 minced cloves of garlic. [The recipe says make a near-paste out of this in a food processor, but I didn't feel like washing the food processor afterwards for this little bit]. Saute for another couple minutes, then add 2 pounds of cubed pork shoulder (or lamb). Stir it around for a minute or so then add turmeric (1/4 tsp), cayenne pepper (~1 tsp) and ground coriander (~1 TB). Add a cup of water and cook for 5 minutes. The picture below shows us at this stage.
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| Early stage of cooking |
Then you add 2 diced tomatoes, some salt, and 2 more cups of water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Add 2 whole black cardamom pods and a cinnamon stick. Keep cover on and cook for 10 more minutes. Add a pound of small waxy potatoes, or the equivalent in chunks. Cook uncovered about 10 more minutes. See below.
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| Middle stages of cooking |
At this point, you are supposed to have thickened sauce clinging to the meat, and not much liquid. If that's the case, you add 3 more cups of water, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for about 20 more minutes. However, at this point, we still had soup consistency despite cooking vigorously. So we skipped the 3 more cups of water and just kept cooking as is. At the very end, you sprinkle some garam masala and cilantro over it. We had to use dried cilantro, but that was better than nothing.
As an aside, Grace has pointed out that I am very rarely in pictures in my own blog. That's kinda true. I don't like pictures much. But here I am throwing loose cardamom pods around the kitchen island. [Note Ryder lurking behind me in case food falls out of the sky (which it sometimes does).]
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| Grabbing runaway cardamom pods |
This is the end result. It's still stew-ish in consistency, but the sauce has thickened nicely. I can't imagine what those 3 more cups of water would have done.
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| Aloo Gosht, but with pork not lamb |
We ate it with white rice, green beans, and raita (cucumbers, yogurt, salt, pepper and cilantro). I can't eat this kind of food without raita, or don't want to anyway... It was pronounced yummy by everyone. I could have used a little more heat, but adding much more in the way of additional cayenne or jalapeños probably would have ruined it for Grace. As it was, it had a nice subtle heat, but nothing extreme at all. The pork was very tender, and the potatoes were almost too tender.
If I were making this again (and I will), I think I would lightly sear the meat as the very first step, then set it aside before repeating what we did above. I also might put the potatoes in a little later to keep them firmer. But these are only very minor tweaks.
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