Mutton Kongoli

This dish is special for me because of the etymology. I never thought I would be writing about the etymology of a dish but then we keep doing the unexpected all the time. So this is how this dish was christened. My little nephew who is visiting us these days was with my hubby in the food court of a mall and there he kept asking for chicken kongoli and my hubby was at his wits end to understand what he means. It was only when my sister came along that we were able to decipher what he was attempting to say – Chicken Tandoori. And when you think about it ‘tandoori’ and ‘kongoli’do rhyme :-).

We liked the name so much we decided to christen some dish with this name. And since it was a mutton dish that was made after this episode it got selected for the Kongoli christening :-).

Ingredients

½ kg mutton on the bone,

¼ kg chopped onions,

1 cup of mustard oil,

12 cloves of garlic,

1 inch piece of ginger,

4 green chillies,

4 tsps powdered coriander seeds,

1 tsp turmeric powder,

½ tsp cumin seed powder,

1 ½ tsp garam masala powder,

8 spicy red chillies,

4 kashmiri red chillies,

Salt to taste,

2 bay leaves,

2 black cardamoms,

A generous amount of chopped coriander leaves

Method

Grind the powdered coriander seeds, turmeric powder, cumin seed powder, garam masala powder, spicy red chillies and kashmiri chillies into a fine paste.

Chop the garlic cloves, ginger and green chillies finely.

Heat the mustard oil and when it is smoking add the chopped onions. When they turn translucent, add the ginger, garlic and green chillies. Fry till the onions turn light brown and then add the ground paste. Bhuno this well for about 8-10 minutes. Now add the washed mutton and salt and bhuno well again. Next add water depending on the consistency you desire in the gravy. Also add the bay leaves and the black cardamoms. Cook till done either in an open vessel or in a pressure cooker as per your preference.

Fold the coriander leaves in. Serve hot with rotis.