Sinful Khatta Meat

I am not really known for my cooking skills. In fact, people are wary of my cooking, since they need to praise it (sometimes even if things don't taste good). The things I cook mostly involve about 30 minutes of cooking time. I firmly believe that, if something can not be cooked in 30 minutes, then it's not worth trying it.

:-)

Given choice, I would always avoid any of those meat recipes (especially Indian once). All of them consist elaborate steps and they take forever to complete. But when I tasted this Khatta meat, it made me want to try it myself. My father-in-law cooks this with such a finesse, that it's lip smacking taste lingers on for days together.

If you like your meat with a bit of zing, then this recipe is for you. It's sinfully dark (black with a hint of green) and just enough sour (to give you a kick). It doesn't need too many spices, just a bowl of good fresh meat and lots and lots of patience. So try this recipe, if you have at least four hours to spare.

Ingredients:

1. Meat (cut into medium size pieces) : 1 kg
2. Onion (coarsely chopped) : 500 gm
3. mustard oil : 200 gm
4. bay leaves : 2-3
5. garlic (crushed) : 15-20 cloves
6. ginger (finely chopped) : two inch piece
7. coriander seed powder : 2 tablespoons
8. Asafoetida : two pinches
9. turmeric powder : 2 teaspoons
10. Aniseed (sounf) : 4 tablespoons
11. fenugreek seeds (roasted and crushed): 1 teaspoon
12. green cardamom (make a slit in each) : 8
13. aamchur : 8 tablespoons
14. Daikon Radish or mooli (take only white part and cut into 1 inch long pieces): 250 gm (this is not mandatory)
15. Salt as per taste

How to get going:

Take big enough pot (I use one big 24cm dia dutch oven), so that the meat can be mixed easily. It is very important to choose right pot. It must have heavy bottom since traditionally this meat is cooked for long hours on low flame. If your pot is not thick enough, it will start burning the meat towards midway.

Heat the pot and pour mustard oil. Once oil is hot enough (you should be able to see a sort of smoke rising), put onions and saute for about two minutes until onion turns transparent. Add meat pieces and salt (will need about two spoons) as per taste and mix it well.

Let it cook for about 60 minutes (yes, you got it right) on the lowest flame possible. You need to keep stirring it every five minutes or so. Add Daikon Radish pieces and let it all cook for another 30 minutes. You will need to stir the mixture once in a while to avoid burning. Once it starts boiling, the onions will slowly dissolve and meat pieces will release juice. The pieces are to cooked in their own juices. The sauce will be reduced until oil is released.

Keep track of the meat. Once you see oil separating in the mixture, check if the meat is cooked. If meat is not cooked then you will need to put meat pieces in pressure cooker to cook separately. Try not to add too much water as it will need more time to reduce it later. If meat is cooked too early while mixture it still watery, take out the meat pieces and then reduce your sauce. If you continue to cook "cooked" meat further it will break into very small pieces.

Once meat is cooked and oil is released, add the spices - coriander seed powder, asafoetida, turmeric, aniseed, fenugreek seeds, ginger, garlic and bay leaves. Mix the mixture until oil separates further. When it becomes sort of dry, add aamchur and cook for another 10 minutes.

Now the dry meat is ready. (You can eat this stuff as starter as well. It tastes yummy). Add water (and salt, if needed) as much required for curry and let it boil for about 10 minutes.

Tadah, your mouthwatering khatta meat is ready. Enjoy it with plain rice.

What's cooking today?

Nowadays, the most difficult problem for me is to plan for food at home. I dread the time when my cook comes and asks me "What should I cook today?".

It's due to number of reasons. I never get enough time (mainly due to lack of interest) to find out inventory in my kitchen. Buying stuff in supermarkets is my favorite time-pass. I also enjoy buying vegetables from the street market. It's so much fun. You can roam around aimlessly and decide on which vendor has the freshest vegetables. Also there are so many vegetables out there that one can plan for the meal right there. I love deciding what to cook depending on what vegetables I see in market. Not to mention that I end up buying veriety of things whenever I go for veggie shopping.

Though I like to buy vegetables, I don't get to do that. Our new house is bit far from the market place, so I rarely go for vegetable shopping. Thus I never know what's available either in home or in market. There are very few dishes which one can make without any advance notice, so I have no choice but to choose from one of the vegetables available at home. In short, we end up eating bread-butter from breakfast, beans for lunch and capsicum for dinner (ok, sometimes we cook peas too).

Sigh!

Couple of days back, when I was looking at my outlook meeting calendar, one idea struck me. I decided to prepare a complete menu for breakfast, lunch, dinner for a week. This way, my cook can stock the required vegetables and preplan the soaking, boiling et al. and the biggest relief is that he won't have to come to me to ask the same question everyday.

Deciding what to eat is such a big challenge. When we don't notice, we can afford to gobble as many calories as we can. But when things are put down on paper, the whole equation changes. One becomes extremely "health" conscious. Hmm, if I have aloo-paratha for breakfast, I should have only salad in night. OMG, How can I have Rajma four times a week? And the list goes on....

It took me whole three days to plan the menu, but I am happy with the outcome. It looks colorful and delicious (at least on paper). Now that I am done with it, it will keep on repeating (until we get bored of it).

Sushi

Ma is here and she is vegetarian. She keeps making lot of things for me, so I decided to cook something different for her.

Suddenly I got up with this idea of sushi. I am no fan of raw fish, (but Aaditya seems to adore sushi). I decided to try out veg sushi instead, so that we all can enjoy it. There are plenty of recipes on net and the process of rolling sticky rice on nori sheets sounds pretty manageable to me.

Now the quest for nori sheets, wasabe and Japanese sticky rice has started. Can somebody help me in finding these things in Bangalore?

chopsticks

My fascination for chopsticks is dated back to my Hongkong trip days. I would call Hongkong true blue Chinese cuisine place. You can get thousands of rice and noodles varieties, hundreds of dumplings and soups and lots of other Chinese delicacies (which I don't remember names of). The only problem was, by default they provide only chopsticks to eat your food. They expect people to eat with chopsticks and I felt they look down upon people who eat with spoons. Language was a pretty big problem, so asking for a spoon was another tough task.

My first experience with chopsticks was not so pleasant. We were at a lunch table and everybody else was eating with chopsticks (well, they all were localites) . When I told them about my inability to use chopsticks, they advised me to try using them first. People around me gave me all sort of tips and tricks to hold the chopsticks and pick up food. But there is nothing like a standard way of using chopsticks. If a certain way works naturally for one person, you won't be even able to hold them properly, if you try the same way.

So there I was, totally hungry and fumbling with a dumpling. Picking up soggy, slippery (and yet delicious) dumpling with a pair of chopsticks was almost impossible task for me. I tried to ask for a spoon and fork, but all I got was more instructions to use the chopsticks effectively. Somehow I got the impression that it's not polite to use spoons on the lunch table. My food was just circling in the dish. So I tried to poke into the dumpling to lift it, but all I could do was to lift it until it barely reached about 10 inches height.... and then I had to quickly lean forward to catch it in my mouth. So with a combination of chopsticks and rigorous neck exercise, I managed to eat those three dumplings (Now I know why Chinese people are so petite). I was all awestruck to see all those small cute kids eating seamlessly with chopsticks. Eventually they handed me spoons, but I felt a huge complex with that whole chopstick business.

That three week trip couldn't do much to improve my chopstick skills. When you somebody demonstrating it, the whole things looks so simple. But in fact there is no more difficult task than that. Chinese people do all sorts of tricks with chopsticks. They can roll the noddles, cut the noodles. pick up slippery dumplings, cut the dumplings, even eat a crab.

Sigh!

Interesting part is, I managed to learn to eat rice with chopsticks.

:-)

Ok, this chopstick episode was reminded because of this mail I got, which had explanation about "How to use chopsticks". There is no point going through the steps, since it doesn't help much. But the "Bad manners" listed in the end were quite interesting.

Bad Manners (Using chopsticks)

• Mayoi-bashi: Mayoi means "dithering". It is bad manners to wave your chopsticks around aimlessly over the food, trying to decide what to take next.
• Utsuri-bashi: Changing the food you have selected after you have touched the food.
• Saguri-bashi: Looking for contents in a soup with chopsticks.
• Sashi-bashi: Sashi means "inserting". It is bad manners to spear food with the points of the chopsticks as if they were a fork.
• Yose-bashi: Yose means "drawing near". It is bad manners to pull the dishes towards you using the chopsticks. Always pick the dishes up in the hand.
• Yoko-bashi: Keeping chopsticks together and using them like spoon.
• Komi-bashi: Raking foods into one's already full mouth with chopsticks.
• Neburi-bashi: Licking the ends of chopsticks.

Other tips

• Don't eat with a broken or mismatched pair of chopsticks.
• Don't eat twice in a row from the same dish except your rice bowl.
• Don't stick chopsticks in your rice. This is commonly done at funerals, or as an offering which is placed on the alter at an ancestral shrine.
• Don't dig under food to get the best pieces.
• Don't eat food directly from the central plate, transfer it to your bowl first.
• Don't lick your chopsticks. Don't stab your food with a chopstick.
• Don't set chopsticks on your bowl of dishes. Chopsticks should be placed on the table, chopstick holder or tray. When you are not using the chopsticks, put them in front of you onto the table or a dish with the tip to the left.
• Do not give food from your chopsticks directly to somebody other's chopsticks. Only at Buddhist funerals where the bones of the burned body are given in that way from person to person.
• Don't make noise with your chopsticks.
• Neither point with the chopsticks to something or somebody nor move them too much around in the air.
• Don't reach across another person with your chopsticks.
• Knife and fork are used for Western food only. Spoons are used for eating certain Japanese dishes, for example donburi or Japanese style curry rice. A Chinese style ceramic spoon is sometimes used to eat soups.
• Making slurping noises while eating noodles is perfectly acceptable in Japan. There is no need to excuse yourself for making noises while eating.

All said, I am happy that I belong to a country, where I can choose to eat with hands and it is perfectly acceptable.

I like momos

Ok, So far I have figured this part out. Now the next thing is to find out how to make them.

What is "All-purpose flour" BTW?