Mangshor jhol- Mutton Curry Bengali Style
This is typical Bengali-style mutton or goat meat curry with potatoes cooked usually on Sundays.
Ingredients
- 1 kg mutton cut into medium-size pieces
- 1 cup thick yogurt
- 2 large onions finely sliced
- 2 tbsp garlic paste
- 1.5 tbsp ginger paste
- 2 nos dried bay leaf
- 3 nos green cardamom
- 4 nos cloves
- 1 inch cinnamon stick
- 2 nos dried red chilies
- 3 tsp Kashmiri Red Chili Powder
- 1 tsp red chili powder
- 2-4 nos green chilies
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp Bengali Garam Masala Find the recipe link in the post above
- 1/2 cup mustard oil plus 1 tbsp extra for the potatoes
- 1 tsp ghee (optional)
- 4 large potatoes
Instructions
- Marinate the mutton with yogurt, ginger paste, garlic paste, Kashmiri red chili powder (half the quantity), 2 tbsp of mustard oil and a bit of salt. Keep it for at least 3- 4 hours or more if possible.
- Peel the potatoes and wash them under running water. Cut each potato in half. In a kadai, heat 1 tbsp of mustard oil and fry the potatoes till the outer part has slightly become golden. Take the potatoes out of the oil and keep them aside.
- In the same kadai, pour the rest of the mustard oil and let it come to a smoking point.
- Add bay leaf, dried red chilies, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom. Let the spices turn colour and release aroma. Add the sliced onions at that time. Over medium to high heat, continue frying the onions till they have softened.
- Add the rest of the Kashmiri red chili powder, sugar and a little bit of salt to this and keep frying.
- The onions will soon become golden brown, more dark reddish in colour.
- At that point, toss in the mutton pieces from the marinade. Over high heat, mix the mutton thoroughly with the onions.
- Mix it all very well in the wok and keep stirring and cooking till the mutton has sort of browned. It actualy starts to release a lot of water. So keep the heat at maximum.
- Transfer the mutton to a pressure cooker and if you do not have one, then all you need is to cover and cook it on stove-top.
- Use a cup of water to clean the wok and transfer all the spices into the pressure cooker. If there is an leftover marinade, transfer that also to the pressure cooker.
- Pressure cook for 15 minutes or about 6 whistles. Turn off the gas and release the steam from the pressure cooker. Open the lid and add the potatoes to the gravy.
- Give it a stir and once again, close the lid and let the mutton cook in the pressure cooker. In case of cooking otherwise, add the potatoes half way into cooking the mutton.
- Continue cooking for another 20 to 25 minutes or about 6 more whistles. The number of whistles depends on the quality of your mutton. Some take a long time to cook and some take less. But approximatley in a pressure cooker, mutton takes from 8 to 12 whistles to cook.
- Once it is done, open the lid after the steam has released. Check if the mutton has become soft or not. If not, then you need to close the lid and give it a couple of more whistles.
- Add another cup of water if you like more gravy. Check the seasoning and add salt if required. Add slit green chilies. Finally, add ghee and garam masala powder and give it a good stir. You can skip the ghee if you want and add only garam masala powder.
- Finally, turn the heat up and give it one boil and then turn off.
- Serve it with some steamed rice or luchi.