Mamta's Kitchen - A Family Cookbook





Lamb Pasanda

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On 19/03/2009 06:03am, SteveAUS wrote:

Hi Mamta

Thinking of giving this one a try on the weekend. Whats the story behind flattening the lamb? Is that to tenderise it? Make it cook quicker or is it just another way of preparing the dish? The meat in the pics looks like normal chunky lamb. In the pics, does the yellowy looking one have sour cream in in at stage 7? The other two are very brown. The bottom one looks delicious.

Cheers

Steve

On 19/03/2009 07:03am, Mamta wrote:

Hello Steve

Lamb was flattened often, because it did was of as good quality as it is now. You still can, and it does tenderise it, but I am lazy and I find that it cooks fine without flattening. I now cook it in a slow cooker, a X-Mas gift from my younger daughter ;-)!

No, it does not have sour cream, just ground almonds. You can add sour cream if you wish, but I think it is creamy enough with almonds.

The top one is an old picture, where I used very small pieces of diced lamb from the supermarket. It looked almost like a mince dish! I will get Pete to remove that top picture eventually.

Mamta

On 19/03/2009 09:03am, SteveAUS wrote:

Thanks Mamta

I dont think I will flatten the lamb. I was just wondering why. I dont have a pressure cooker...I dont mind at all when im cooking I like to take a whole afternoon (or day) preparing and cooking them. Will let you know how it goes.

Regards

Steve

On 19/03/2009 11:03am, Winton wrote:

I have a psychological barrier about beating the hell out of meat, just feel the poor animal has been through enough already!

If it looks a bit tough would not a gentle massage with some amchar (dried mango powder) do the trick?

Steve - thanks for flagging up another great sounding recipe for me to try this weekend!

On 19/03/2009 12:03pm, Rajneesh wrote:

Hello,

Use raw papaya while cooking lamb (though I have never used it). What I have used is a readymade meat tenderiser powder which contains papaya enzyme ..papayin?, available in indian stores.

On 19/03/2009 05:03pm, Mamta wrote:

To be honest, I have not had to use it while cooking meat in UK. Green papaya is rather expensive here, so doesn?t make sense to waste it this way. Generally, marinating meat or pressure cooking is enough to cook it well.

Mamta

On 19/03/2009 05:03pm, Lapis wrote:

the meat is flattened because that is the pasanda, the size is rather a strict tradition, and the original pasanda was cooked on a skewer. It was also probably goat, so any tenderizer (papain) was probably for that, but as Mamta says, lamb shouldn't need any, and if it does, change your butcher or SM.

On 19/03/2009 05:03pm, Lapis wrote:

I forgot to say that this dish originated outside of India, and is now more associated with Pakistan. I once prepared this dish (though with chicken and ostrich) for a party of 16 and called it panda pasanda! No one said a word ;?)

On 19/03/2009 06:03pm, AskCy wrote:

LOL !! Would love to have seen there faces when you put that out !....

On 19/03/2009 10:03pm, SteveAUS wrote:

Thanks all for you comments. I'll just keep the lamb in chunks. We get very good lamb here. I think I will also leave out the almonds in the marinade as I want to aim for the colour in the bottom pic not the yellowy coloured one.

http://mamtaskitchen.com./recipe_display.php?id=12834

Cheers, will let you know how it goes Winton

Steve

On 20/03/2009 05:03am, Mamta wrote:

Steve, cook it as it is, with almonds and all. It is tasty and it will be fine.

Mamta

On 20/03/2009 03:03pm, Winton wrote:

Hi Steve (Aus)

Got my Lamb Pasanda marinating for later. Afraid I've wimped out on the Almonds too (come from an even Marzipan hating family) but added saffron instead. Will report back in due course!

On 20/03/2009 09:03pm, AskCy wrote:

and take some pictures !... :-)

Steve

On 21/03/2009 12:03am, SteveAUS wrote:

well.......it just tasted of sour yoghurt? Mouth puckeringly tart. I couldnt eat it. I used 125gms plain/traditional yoghurt for the marinade. I licked the spoon after putting it in and thought "wow thats tart" and didnt think anything else of it. The meat melted in your mouth as it was cooking for about 3 hrs. No idea what happened. Ah well not to worry.

Cheers

Steve

P.S. My camera is still broken. Need to buy a new one.

On 21/03/2009 07:03am, Mamta wrote:

Not sure what happened here steve. I have made this so many times and people always compliment me on it. If you work out what went wrong, do let me know please.

Mamta

On 21/03/2009 08:03am, Winton wrote:

Hi Steve - sorry the recipe didn't work out for you, I made mine (no almonds but an extravagant dose of saffron) and it was divine.

My theory would be that even 'full fat' yoghurt is no longer 'full fat' and needs to be strained before cooking. The "Health Police" are out to get us, OK they want us to eat minus 25% fat yoghurt for breakfast with a banana, - fine, but for cooking we need the complete full fat version as the diluted ones can do some very odd things on cooking.

On 21/03/2009 10:03am, AskCy wrote:

Maybe the yoghurt was off ? or an extra tart batch ?

Steve

On 21/03/2009 03:03pm, Mamta wrote:

When on a recent trip to India last month, I was making a carrot and tomato curry for my mum, with minimum of salt, spice and no chillies. She hasn't been well and on low salt/low spice diet. Imagine my surprise when I tasted it! It was as tart as lemon juice, no way anyone could have eaten it. It had to be thrown away. Next morning, my mum was having cornflakes with hot milk (common practice in India). She called me over and said, ?take a look at this Mamta, the milk doesn?t look right?. Sure enough, it was curdled. I tasted the milk from the jug and the cornflakes, both were fine. I couldn?t understand! Mystery was solved by my brother's servant. He took one look at the sugar pot and said, ? it is tartari, Hindi word for tartaric acid! Someone had put it in an identical container to the sugar container. To make it more confusing, it was in crystal form though smaller crystals than sugar.

The day before, I had added 1/6 of a spoon of what I thought was sugar, to her carrot curry at her request!

Mamta

On 09/04/2009 11:04pm, overcautious wrote:

Really interesting chat here. I just posted a thread as I put too much GM in mine! Before that it was great!

I think the ground almonds add a sweetness that counteracts the yoghurt. I could hardly taste the almonds - just a subtle sweetness.

I am new to this site and am hooked!

Until tonight I have only ever had curry by take away or jar - I am a real convert - thanks so much Mamta :)

On 10/04/2009 12:04am, AskCy wrote:

overcautious, yeah we all came across this site for one reason or another and have become hooked... thats it your here forever now !... LOL

Glad you like the site, hope you stick around and share your ideas, recipes and other bits and bobs with us !

As for the Garam Massala overdose I can't imagine that 1 tsp rather than half would make it vastly different... maybe its been a combination of other things ?

Steve

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