[Modernist Cuisine] Mughal Curry (5•92)

[Anonymous Modernist 773]

I made the Mughal Curry sauce last night. It was not one of the more successful recipes I have made from Modernist Cuisine.

Perhaps I needed to soak the nuts for longer than the recipe called for, but I had the hardest time trying to get my blendtec to grind them into a paste. I added a fairly significant amount of water (didn't measure but at least 1/2 C) but even then it was difficult going. Then when I added the nut pastes to the sauteed ingredients, there wasn't enough liquid to even come close to a simmer. I neglected to check the errata and I see that I should have added 200 g of water at the point. Well, I added well more than that trying to get this to a consistency looser than wet cement. Has anybody else had trouble with this recipe?

All that being said, it tasted decent.

[Anonymous Modernist 4240]

I had the same problems as nolnacs.

Where can i find the modified recipe?

[EHenning]

I adapted this recipe to a Rajasthan favourite, Lal Maas. For the meat, I used goat, cut into suitable chunks, and then sous vide for 48 hours at 61 C. The following was adapted from the book, Prashad Cooking with Indian Masters:

Ingredients:

1 kg goat

30 Whole red chillies

60 gms chopped garlic

200 gms finely sliced onions

6 cardamoms (green)

6 cardamoms (black)

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 cup Curd

4 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

3/4 cup Ghee

2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Remove stems from chillies, slit and de-seed. Peel and slice the garlic; peel, wash and finely slice the onion; peel, wash and chop the coriander. Roast the cumin seeds on a tawa.

2. Whisk the yoghurt in a bowl, add red chillies, cumin, coriander powder, turmeric and salt, mix well, and keep aside for 10 minutes.

3. Heat ghee in a deep bottomed pan, add the garlic and saute over medium heat until golden brown. Add cardamoms and sliced onions and saute until the onions turn brown. Add the meat and bhunno for 4-5 minutes. Add the curd mixture and simmer until the gravy is almost completely dry.

4. At this point, 3 cups water would normally be added followed by the meat, which would be cooked until tender. The method I followed was to add about 1 1/2 cups water, bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes, and then allow to cool to about 70 C - not all the way down to 61 C. Then add the meat, together with any juices from the bag. Add water if necesary - the sauce should not quite cover the meat.

The result should be garnished with coriander and served with rice. The results were superb, and the first curry I have tried where once bitten into, the meat was still pink. I shall certainly try adapting other recipes to this method - Rogan Josh comes to mind as suitable.

I decided to post this because I had a significant job researching the right temperature at which to cook the goat.