A blade shines in the darkest of the nights
As all of you already know, Pierre and I love Indian food, besides cooking some at home, we frequent a lot of Indian restaurants too. The menus always have a lot of unfamilliar words that we can only understand thanks to the provided translation. As I was writing this post, I decided to do some search on what those we see most often mean.
Here is what I found: Batak (duck), Chingri (shrimps), Gosht (meat - invariably lamb), Jingha (prawn), Kofta (meat balls), Murgh (chicken), Nargis (boiled egg), Paneer (cheese), Bhindi (okra, ladies' fingers), Dall (lentils), Ghobi (cauliflower), Kumbi (mushrooms), Matar (peas), Saag (spinach); and "Aloo Gosht" means Potatoes with Meat. And this is what is simmering in our pot today.
It all started on twitter with a group of wonderful and good food blogging friends. We were twittering about food (what else) and such when I kept seeing the word 'Ghost' popping up. Whenever Jamie and Deeba mentioned about Jamie's Aloo Gosht, they would joke about Meeta seeing ghost when having this dish. Now that piqued my ninja curiosity wondering if Meeta really had some ghostly encounter with this dish. To my great disappointment, it was nothing of the kind. LOL! You see, Meeta was trying to compliment Jamie on her recent Aloo Gosht dish when she accidently typed Aloo Ghost instead, causing Jamie and Deeba teased her non stop about it. To be honest, I never really made the connection between gosht and ghost until Meeta let me in on the joke. It was then that I took a double look at the word 'GOSHT' - LOL. So here we are, I made our very own Aloo Ghost, oops, I mean Gosht.
The below recipe is a slightly modified version from the original version by Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking on Jamie's blog, Lifesafeast.
It's savory and very aromatic with just a teasing tint of spiciness in each spoonful. The meat is very tender. It's also a bit soupy and the broth is lightly tangy. My mom-in-law finds it very refreshing and umpf! A wonderful dish to have on a cold day!
In my above recipe I have reduced the quantity of water from the original recipe of 900 ml as I find my dish was way too soupy (very thin broth) to my liking and I had to simmer it uncovered for a long time to reduce water. I find that it is better to add less water first and dilute it later to your preference if one finds it too concentrated.
If you are using normal pot to cook the above recipe, cook step 5 until oil separates from the sauce and sauce thickens. However if you are using a non-stick wok or pot, oil will not separate from sauce.
If you have some very firm potatoes, you may let potatoes simmer together with the rest of the ingredients for an hour or so. As for me, the normal potatoes I had in my pantry just simply melt to pieces at the end of an hour or so of simmering.
Adjust the spiciness according to your taste. Omit the green chili totally if you can't take spiciness, but put more if you like it hot as I made it mild for my family. The chili powder I use in all my recipes is from grounded dried chilli. I understand that there are different version of chili powder available - some are a blend of chili with other spices.
Oh Pam, I love the oooompf your dish has. It's got something for everyone & looks finger licking good. LOL on the ghost & gosht story. Well we live to tell the tale, and you did beautifully. It's wonderful to be able to relive those ghostly twitter days! xoxo
YAY!!! looks awesome and great to hear you guys like Indian food!!)
btw, do you have a pressure cooker? then u can cook the meat with onion-tomato mixture in it and then simmer minutes or so. Makes cooking faster and gravy thicker...
Love your story. Indian food are very delicious. They are so popular internationally. This dish looks delicious. I love all the ingredients that you used. Great with rice. I have yet to learn more Indian food. So far only made nan and tandoori chicken.
Hmmm, you told me that you got a watery sauce rather than the thicker sauce I got. I must check quantities! But we absolutely loved this dish, tangy and just hot enough and so flavorful, I know I'll make it again and again! And you have me smiling at the twitter-tom-foolery!
Oh this looks delicious, such a comfort food!
We love Indian food too, it is one restaurant we frequent often as my girls both loved to eat naan with curry.
I love Indian food: it is so versatile,..This Indian dish looks delicious!!!
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM,...all the way!!
Hey all, good to know that you all love our food. You all should also try Karahi gosht. Have a nice day.
Hey all, good to know that you all love our food. You all should also try Karahi gosht. Have a nice day.
thankyou! it was so yummy! and super easy!