PRESSURE COOKER E MUTTON

The mention of Pressure Cooker has a special significance in my life because it is not much in use in my kitchen except for boiling certain variety of lentils I consider "belligerent."I boil "thor & mocha" in it too. Pressure Cooker if used wisely can become a very important kitchen tool. I hardly use it for "cooking" purposes because I have seen the final step if done in a pressure cooker does not give me the same taste that cooking in a wok gives. Because I may not know the right use of a pressure cooker that concerns mainly the timing, the dish cooked in it does not appeal to my taste bud. Only  meat stews I do in a pressure cooker which proves the other way round. People who make extensive use of pressure cooker would counter me saying curries done in it locks in all the nutrients. I agree! May be because I do  not know how to use it diligently, so dishes done in it does not look good and tastes a bit bland in my kitchen. Same thing happened with use of microwave oven in my home, it majorly remained as a medium to reheat food. For quite sometime, I get to hear that using a microwave oven for reheats is very bad for our health but I cannot go without it. I remember how my side of the family did not accept it and reheated stuffs before dinner in a wok, again cleaned the gas stove before going to sleep.  I cannot even ask Cristine to perform this exercise each day, let me use both pressure cooker and microwave the way I wish and to my convenience. Doing this mutton curry with a couple of souring agents like lemon juice, tomato, plain yogurt in a pressure cooker PRESSURE COOKER E MUTTON saved 1/2 an hour of the total time I require doing it in a wok. The taste was good but I would still hold the view that mutton or chicken cooked in a wok tastes better.

It was a Saturday, so I did not make any effort to take stepwise pictures of the recipe. You might have noticed that I do not click the steps for recipes that my family veterans may not doubt the limits of my palms. These simpler mutton, chicken and fish recipes do not require stepwise photo guide, anyone can do!I get mutton once every two weeks, wisdom is to restrict the intake to once a month, red meat does no good to our body but we so love mutton that we cannot resist having it. This is the case for the entire family and they definitely do struggle to resist having it. I think I have mentioned earlier the following. It was 2017 February, our parents were in their yearly visit to Puri.... the land of fish. They used to stay there for 15 days every year and our mother preferred to cook herself given they get very good fish there and our father loved prawns so much, prawns in Puri are too fresh. In the land of fish, he got some mutton one day and had it in the land of temples just two months before his death. I prefer not to have mutton outside home, if its not cooked properly I get the smell. Yesterday, the mutton of the mutton-rice of a famous Bangladeshi chain did smell. The mutton supply here comes from the Kangaroo Land whose mutton & lamb variety is not per our likeness, so you must have patience while cooking it. This Bangladeshi chain uses bigger in size and better quality of mutton pieces on Saturdays & Sundays. We better cook mutton with lots of love at home, somedays  in a pressure cooker like this PRESSURE COOKER E MUTTON using more amount of souring agents.

INGREDIENTS :

MUTTON OR LAMB : 1KG
PLAIN YOGURT : 1MEDIUM TEA CUP
CHOPPED TOMATO : 1SMALL TEA CUP
CHOPPED OR SLICED ONION : 1MEDIUM TEA CUP
MINCED GINGER : 11/2TSP
MINCED GARLIC : 2TBSP
SLITTED GREEN CHILLI : 4-5
LEMON JUICE : 4-5TBSP
VINEGAR : 1/2SMALL TEA CUP
CUMIN POWDER : 1TSP
CORIANDER POWDER : 2TSP
RED CHILLI POWDER : 1TBSP
FENNEL POWDER : 1TSP
TURMERIC POWDER : 1TSP + 1TSP
CINNAMON POWDER : 1/2TSP
CLOVES POWDER : 1/4TSP
GREEN CARDAMOM POWDER : 1/4TSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
BAYLEAF : 2
SUGAR : 1TSP[OPTIONAL]
OIL : 2-3TBSP 

PROCEDURE :

Wash the mutton thoroughly getting rid of any amount of skin and hair. This work took 40-45 minutes alone at our homes. Cristine hardly listens to me.

Drain the water and marinate with the vinegar for an hour. Wash the mutton again thoroughly and discard any amount of water.

Now marinate it with beaten plain yogurt+some salt+cumin powder+red chilli powder+coriander powder+fennel powder+1tsp turmeric powder very well rubbing for 3-4 minutes.

Keep it in a tightly covered container for at least 5-6 hours, I marinate it over night.

Take it out an hour before starting to cook.

Heat oil in the pressure cooker and temper with the bay leaves. Add the washed & minced garlic and ginger, 1tsp turmeric. Stir fry for 1/2 a minute.

Add the chopped onions and fry till brown at low heat. Add the mutton pieces sans the marinade. Stir at high heat for 4-5 minutes.

Reduce heat to minimal, add the marinade, stir and cover with a plate, cook for 15 minutes. Open cover and check the level of water being released. Stir for 1-2 minutes and cover cook at the minimal heat for another 15 minutes. Open cover, stir for a while and cover cook again for 8-10 minutes.

Open cover to see if the water has dried. If so, add the washed and chopped tomatoes, slitted green chillies, cinnamon+green cardamom+cloves powder. Stir well for 2 minutes.

Add 11/2 coffee mug of water to the pressure cooker, stir and close tight the lid. Pressure cook at low up to 1 whistle, switch off gas oven. Let the cover open by itself. Add the lemon juice and stir.

We are done. The curry tastes better the next day. We also had a simply made paneer curry, split urad dal with skin and thinly sliced egg plant fry on that day. Have it with steamed rice, pulao, fried rice, or bread varieties.