I’ve been living away from my parents for almost 5 years of my life now. Back then if you asked me if I preferred home cooked food or outdoors, I’d say outdoors without thinking twice. You don’t quite understand how crucial “Ghar ka khana” really is till you move out and have to eat takeout every day!

I’ve always enjoyed cooking since childhood but it was more of a passion than a chore. When my appetite slowly started to wither away because of eating outside constantly, I made it a point to start cooking at least the non- vegetarian part of my meals 3-4 times a week. My first attempt at the classic Odia mutton curry was a disaster. I was impatient and the masala was raw and so was the meat.After about 20 times of hit and trial, I think I’ve reached my perfect recipe where the masala is just right and the meat is fall off the bone texture. My parents would be so proud. Adulting 101.

RECIPE(For 750g mutton):

1. Marinate the mutton with turmeric powder, chilli powder, salt, a dash of mustard oil and 2tbsp of curd. Marination time can range from 30 minutes to 4 hours, depending on how much time and patience you have.

2. For the masala-
2 medium onions
7-8 cloves of garlic
1/4 inch ginger
1 large tomato
2 dried chilliesGrind all of this in a mixer and set aside for the main “kassa” process.

3. Add 2tbsp mustard oil to a pan and temper the oil with 2 cloves, 1 elaichi and 1 dried chilly.

4. Once the oil is hot, add 1.5 chopped onions to the oil. (I like to add half chopped onions and half in the paste because the chopped onions add a lovely texture to the gravy of the curry.

5. When the onions start to brown, add the ginger garlic onion tomato paste. To this add turmeric powder, chilli powder, garam masala and salt to taste and begin the legendary process of “Kassa”. This is probably the most crucial step in the mutton curry process as the color of your curry and taste highly relies on this part. You can add 2 potatoes cut into 4 pieces each at this step to the masala so that they can soak in all the masala goodness!

6. Cook the masala on simmer for about 20-30 minutes or till the raw smell of the masala is gone and it starts developing a lovely brown color.

7. To this add the mutton and cook in the pan for abt 10-15 minutes on simmer.

8. Now for the final step, I don’t like cooking mutton in a pan as it takes forever to tenderize and a lot of consumption of gas is there. I wouldn’t recommend cooking it on a pan but if you don’t have a pressure cooker, cover the meat and keep stirring it for an hour or an hour or 20 minutes till the meat reaches fall off the bone texture.

9. For the pressure cooker method, load it up and season it with a pinch of salt and a dash of chilli powder for that extra kick and put it on high. 5 whistles on high and then 3 whistles on simmer. Depending on your pressure cooker, 8-9 whistles should take you to tender mutton bliss.

I sourced my mutton from www.emeat.in as I don’t have the time to go buy mutton myself. Highly recommend it as the meat was of extremely amazing quality.

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