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The Indian subcontinent · Volume 15, The Trami, the Boti and a Kitchen Split Three Ways

Khatta meat

Jammu, Dogra tradition

Khatta meat, a Dogra sour meat curry: bone-in mutton pieces in a thin reddish-brown, faintly glossy sour gravy, no garnish.

Illustration

Time
2 hours

Jammu's sour mutton curry, distinct from a similarly named Kashmiri dish, khatta gosht, for which no rigorous side by side comparison has been found; the two should not be treated as the same dish under different names.

As tradition built it

Serves 4. About 2 hours.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg mutton, cut into pieces
  • for browning mustard oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 tbsp ground anardana (dried pomegranate seed)
  • 1 tbsp amchur (dried mango powder)
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • to taste salt
  • enough to cover water
  • 1 small piece charcoal, for dhuni (optional)
  • 1 tsp mustard oil, for dhuni (optional)

Method

  1. Brown the mutton in mustard oil with the chopped onion.
  2. Add the ground anardana, amchur, turmeric, ground coriander and salt.
  3. Cover with water and simmer for around an hour and a half until the meat is tender and the sauce has reduced and taken on a genuine sourness from the anardana and amchur rather than any fresh acid.
  4. To finish with dhuni, set a small piece of burning charcoal in a heatproof cup nestled into the finished dish, pour a teaspoon of hot mustard oil over it to raise smoke, and cover the whole pan tightly for 2 to 3 minutes before removing the cup and serving.

Notes

Distinct from a similarly named Kashmiri dish, khatta gosht; no rigorous side-by-side comparison of the two has been found, and they should not be treated as the same dish under different names.

What a modern chef changes

An anardana reduction, a sous vide braise and a smoking gun for the dhuni

Builds on rung 5

Method

  1. Reduce anardana to a syrup. Simmer extra pomegranate seed down in advance to a concentrated syrup, stirred through the finished dish for a deeper, more controlled sourness than the ground seed alone gives.
  2. Cook the meat sous vide. Bring it to full tenderness at a controlled low temperature, then finish the sauce separately, rather than braising the two together for the full time.
  3. Use a smoking gun for the dhuni. Run it briefly under a cloche over the finished dish, a more controllable, repeatable version of the same smoke infusion.
  4. Garnish with dehydrated mango. Dust mango slice with amchur and dehydrate it as a garnish, echoing the dish's own souring agent in a second, visible form.
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