Dal Gost (Mutton with Lentil curry)

‘Dal Gost (Mutton with Lentil curry)’ is delicious, authentic and flavourful Pakistani recipe; this has beautiful aroma and fantastic in taste as it is cooked adopting slow cooking method and takes long time to tenderise. I prepared with Tuhar dal you may use Chana dal or Masoor dal also for the recipe.

Ingredients:

• Tovar dal/ Tuhar dal/Arhar dal (Pigeon pea lentil): 100 gm
• Mutton: 400 gm (preferably shank pieces)
• Onion: 2 no. (Medium size)
• Tomato: 2 no. (Medium)
• Garlic cloves: 6-8 no.
• Bay leaves: 2 no.
• Cumin: 1 teaspoon
• Black cardamom: 1 no.
• Green cardamom: 2-3 no.
• Cloves: 4 no.
• Cinnamon; 2” piece
• Star anise: 1 no.
• Cumin seed: ½ teaspoon
• Mustard oil: 4-5 table spoon
• Garlic leaves: (optional)
• Coriander leaves: 20 gm.
• Turmeric powder: 1 teaspoon
• Garam masala powder: 1 teaspoon

 For dry masala:

• Chili: 3-4 no.
• Coriander: 1 tablespoon
• Cumin: 1 teaspoon
• Black pepper: 10-12 no.

For wet masala:

• Ginger: 3” piece
• Garlic cloves: 6-8 no.
• Green chilli:  (optional)

For Seasoning:

• Ghee (clarified butter): 2 tablespoon
• Cumin seed: ½ teaspoon
• Dry red chilli: 2 no.
• Kasuri Methy: 1 tablespoon
• Curry leaves: 1 twig

Preparation:

1. Take a Bhagona (pateela), put 400 ml water, when water starts boiling add washed dal; cook dal on medium flame. When dal gets frothy; remove forth and continue to cook on medium low flame with lid ‘on’ till it is done 90%, put off the flame; ‘Dal’ is ready, keep aside.
2. Prepare dry masala powder by dry roast each ingredient separately and grind, keep aside.
3. Prepare wet masala paste by ground ingredients with help of water, keep aside.
4. Clean and wash mutton, keep aside.
5. Clean garlic pods, keep aside.
6. Chop onions into fine slices and tomatoes into small pieces, keep aside.
7. Deep fry one onion slices into ghee until it gets golden brown in colour, keep aside to garnish the ‘Dal Gost’

Method:

1. Put oil in the cooker. Heat the oil till smoke starts; Put clove, bay leaf, cumin seed, black pepper, cinnamon, both type of cardamom, anise star and 4 cloves of garlic with skin, fry till garlic become light brown.
2. Add onion; fry on high flame till onion gets translucent, add mutton, continue to fry on medium low flame till mutton colour change (about 6-8 minutes).
3. Add wet masala paste, salt, turmeric powder and dry masala powder; continue to fry on lower flame with lid on until liquid dried up (stir fry in between to avoid sticking in bottom) it about 3-5 minutes.
4. Add about one litre of water; continue to cook on high flame until it starts to boil, reduce the flame continue to cook on lower flame for about 2- 2 ½ hours or until mutton is done (this method is called slow cooking).
5. Add chopped tomatoes stir fry on medium flame till tomatoes gets messy appearance; add Garam masala powder, cooked dal and water for your desire consistency.
6. Boil and add chopped coriander leaves.
7. Note: if you do not have time, you may cook in pressure cooker, it will take about 20 minutes to tenderise mutton (use less water)

Seasoning:

1. Take wok, put ghee in it, add dry red chilli, cumin seed, and sputter it for few seconds; put off the flame, add curry leaves and Kasuri Methy. Transfer into prepared dal gost; cover it for couple of minutes.
2.  It is ready to be served at the time of lunch or dinner, along with chapatti and rice.
3. Note: Don’t forget to decorate with deep fried onion slices. Serve hot.

Dal Gost (Mutton with Lentil curry) by Nag Ratna Sahu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.