For decades I’ve done the meat shopping for the household, dredging out of memory my mother’s directives: hind legs have more meat and more fibre, so they’re good for making mince and for pasandas , both of which are tenderised by the very process by which they’re made. I remember the first time the senior butcher at M.S. (no expansion, just M.S.) fashioned them for me.
He cut out neat, uniformly-sized pieces of meat from the raan , cleaned them of all begaana slivers and shreds of silvery ligament and fat, then, with a heavy cleaver, did a soft chop-chop-chop on each, in both directions, making a barely perceptible grid-like pattern. Then he flipped the pieces over and repeated the job. Finally, with a satisfied smile, he flattened and smashed them with the flat of his blade, spreading each into what Europeans call an escalope or schnitzel . That man wasn’t a mere surgeon; he was an artist.
But for boti , pieces cut for Indian curry-style cooking, dasti it has to be. The meat on the foreleg has less fibre, is more tender and cooks fast, even without pressure. Even a roast, traditionally made with the leg, was made by my guru with the shoulder. It’s small enough to fit in a regular pressure cooker, cooks quickly, and I’ve done it a hundred times so I can do it without thinking.
Last week, the man of the house went forth with lance and spear to bring home the mutton. He was given a written shopping list for shoulder boti , qeema twice-minced, and chicken breasts. I phoned Babu, the meat-shop man, with instructions. A couple of hours later the hunter-gatherer returned with a nervous smile. He said Babu had insisted that we try a leg for roast; had guaranteed its tenderness, and what could he do but agree.
So we put away the rest of the victuals in the freezer and started the marination of the raan . I knew I was gong to roast it in the oven but had no idea where to begin. So I started with the Internet.
The basic, most important information I needed, was how long to cook it for and at what temperature. The trouble with the net is that though it gives one access to all the food literature of the universe, the reliability and relevance of every site is not guaranteed. I was worried that anything could go wrong.
It could be over-cooked. Dry. Undercooked. Underseasoned. Bland. Burnt. Bloody. Anything was possible. But I’ve cooked, eaten and survived to tell the tale. So I’ve devised my method to find the way. I check a few websites, preferably ones I’ve used before, and then compare the chief and salient steps. How much garam masala I add is not material. What I did note was that two or three international sites prescribed the same temperature and cooking time.
I believe that oven cooking is better developed in the West and directions are crisper, more specific; less of the “andaaza” approach. This prejudice was borne out because the Hunter-G said that he had a recipe, and produced a book by an Indian author, endorsed by some famous Indian bon vivants . There’s nothing more likely to get my dander up than to be bade to “give it a few whistles”.
Sure enough, this recipe asked me to pressure-cook for ‘4-5 whistles’ and then oven-roast it for a few minutes. So it was abandoned. But what I did find on the net was a common direction — to preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius and then cook the marinated leg for two to two-and-a-half hours. As it happened, maybe the marination was exceptionally good, or maybe Babu had given us the tenderest kid, the cooking time was more like an hour and a half. In my nervous anxiety, I had been pulling the dish out of the oven and poking it with a fork every 30 minutes. I let it rest for about half an hour, scattered some onion rings on it and served it with regular Indian khana . The meat was brown, rich, moist, flavourful and could be cut with a spoon.
RAAN MUSALLAM
Serves 6
1 raan , mutton leg, trimmed, 1.5 kg approx.
Marinade
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp ginger
2 tbsp raw papaya pulp
2 tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin powder
2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 cup hung yoghurt
2 tbsp honey, warmed
A pinch of saffron
Salt
1/2 cup ghee
2 tbsp slivered almonds
6 green cardamoms
6 cloves
1 tsp peppercorns
1 inch cinnamon
Make deep gashes in the meat with a knife-tip and rub in the marinade. Refrigerate, covered, for 8-24 hours. When ready to cook, rub in salt, honey and saffron. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Heat a large frying pan to a very high temperature, heat half the ghee and sear the meat till brown on both sides. Place meat in a small baking dish and sprinkle almonds over. Separately sauté whole spices in remaining ghee and pour over meat. Loosely cover dish with aluminium foil and bake for approximately one and a half hours.
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