Hi I've just been on Kavey easts blog and read her review on the Delhi grill. It sounds lovely, I'll be giving it a try! My question is, is rogan gosht the same curry as lamb rogan gosh?

I've just read the recipe for lamb rogan josh, if I make it in my slow cooker, will I still need to brown the onions/garlic/ginger etc. and seal the meat before I place everything in the slow cooker?

the dish is rogan josh, there is nothing called rogan gosht; gosht is Persian for meat.

Rogan means fat and josh means warming (both corporeally and spiritually).

If you are cooking rogan josh, as it is a korma, it is a braising dish, so the meat browns, well the bit out of the water/fat liquor. Therefore shake the pan every 15 minutes to brown all sides.

You cannot seal meat by heating it, the word is sear. Another old chef's tale!

Thanks for your reply.

Has the term "seal the meat" actually been misunderstood sometime in the past and thats what people keep using as an expression? I'm presuming that is should be "sear the meat" which means to brown/blacken it ?

Steve

Hi Savs

Lapis is completely right that the correct name of the dish is rogan josh BUT I want to add that there are many, many restaurant menus with the incorrect name of rogan gosht for the same dish.

These are probably written by those who really don't have any knowledge of the origins of the dish or of its name, so they have assumed the josh is gosht (which means meat).

So yes, where you see rogan gosht, it's an incorrectly named rogan josh.

Is rogan josh always related to lamb? what about chicken?

in the far north of India (and Pakistan, no boundaries here!) is the state of Jammu and Kashmir (on the Indian side, anyway!). In winter, it gets cold, so any dishes that 'keep out the cold' are welcome.

Rogan josh is one of these dishes. Essentially, it is meat, yoghurt, chillies and spices, that is all, no fruit (beloved of all Indian restaurants) or tomatoes or coconut or cream. It is a korma, that is, a braising dish, where whole meat on the bone is simmered in a liquid containing both water and fat.

The science tells us that browning will occur if the meat is out of the liquid, but has been in contact with carbohydrate (from the yoghurt and spices). Only the meat above the fluid line is browned, so periodic turning of the meat is important. The pan in which the korma is cooked must be sealed, to retain the water based ingredients. Cooking can take from one to several hours to break down the connective tissue in the meat, so it is 'falling off the bone'. The meat would normally be goat (called mutton in India), but hogget, even lamb is possible, as is chaemera. But the dish needs a long slow cook to give of its best, so all the reactions take place.

This why chicken is not appropriate, it doesn't need prolonged cooking, in fact it would be very stringy, and if one shortened the time, the flavours would be lacking, and the spicing inappropriate.

So you can see why the meat used must be appropriate to the dish, and why 'Indian restaurants' offerings are so off the mark!

J&K is a unique state, is as much as the majority of its inhabitants are Muslim. This religious divide also divides the rogan josh. Muslims would use onions and garlic whereas the Pandits (Kashmiri Hindus) and would not, and use asafoetida instead.

Thanks Lapis.....i am already drooling !!!!!!

I made Mamta's rogan josh tonight. I'm not a big fan of lamb or mutton, so I used beef instead. The flavour of the curry was beautiful. I'll definitely be making it again, but sadly I used cheap stewing steak which turned out to be quite tough and gristley. After stir frying the meat for about 10 minutes, I put the lid on and let it simmer for an hour. Maybe I didn't cook it long enough. I'm thinking about using sirloin next time in the hope that it'll be a lot more tender and will cook quicker. Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks for all your replies! Very helpful as always.

your mistake (apart from using beef!) was to fry it. It is a tough cut, and will get tougher if fried. Steak will be too tender, and become stringy if you leave it long enough for all the flavours to form. If you cook for less time, the flavours will not have time to develop to the extent that they should.

You can use beef if you really must, but use a cut from a leg, with the bone still on. Long slow cooking, turning periodically. But the spices will be wrong for beef.

If you really want to get the best results you can, it is so important to use the correct meat for the dish, that even means the right cut, and the right butchery.

I would urge you to try lamb shoulder, cooked on the bone, even if you cut it off before serving. The spices are there to complement the lamb, not swamp it, so it brings out the flavours of the lamb.

Savs

"I made Mamta's rogan josh tonight. I'm not a big fan of lamb or mutton, so I used beef instead. The flavour of the curry was beautiful. I'll definitely be making it again, but sadly I used cheap stewing steak which turned out to be quite tough and gristley. After stir frying the meat for about 10 minutes, I put the lid on and let it simmer for an hour. Maybe I didn't cook it long enough. I'm thinking about using sirloin next time in the hope that it'll be a lot more tender and will cook quicker. Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks for all your replies! Very helpful as always. "

Hi Savs

I eat a lot of long braising beef because husband will not eat lamb so making dishes like this I would use stewing beef.

A couple of things occur to me about your beef.

an hour is not long enough to cook any braising type of beef, anything from 1.5-3 hours depending where it's from.

I now use a piece from Waitrose meat counter from their Forgotten Range called either Flank or Skirt can't remember what it's called...but flank and skirt are next to each other on the animal.

It has lot's of little veins of fat that keep the meat moist and melt and make it very tender not drying out. There is one big fat connected tissue right in the middle and you can leave and it easily comes off when cooked or if cubing meat you can cut it out, personal preferences.

I used this piece of beef in a casserole 10 days ago and it was melting tender in 2 hours in the oven.

I have a photo of this piece of beef raw if you want to have a look...I will be buying it again this week and will know for certain if it's flank or skirt.

The other point about your stewing steak is even if you had cooked it for longer say 2-3 hrs it's not guaranteed to be tender for the following reason;

too lean, not enough fat, so it dries out and though is cooked it's tough...I've had this problem before with meats that are sold as Stewing Steak because it says nothing about where the beef is from in the cow.

Just because it says stewing does not mean they have labeled the right cut, I find this experience particularly applies to supermarket pre-packed meat and butchers who are not interested in being informative about where their stewing steak is from.

...the other point is also not enough fat in the breed of cow their supplying, not hung properly all of which makes a difference to a good stewing piece of beef. You really need beef with little veins of fat as the meat is cooking for long and loosing some of it's water content the fat is there to keep it moist.

Big mistake to use something like a sirloin because sirloin is a beautiful piece of meat good enough for a good steak it's from a part of the cow that doesn't do a lot of work so it's tender...the meat from parts of the cow that has to work needs slow cooking.

Sirloin to be at its best and tender is to medium cook, the more you cook a steak the more moisture you are evaporating, Steak is 60% water (heard that on Horizon) so the more you cook the more moisture you driving out of the meat.

Today for a special lunch I had a piece of sirloin to roast about 1.5kg about 3lbs and roasted it for an hour it was perfect pink in the middle and butter tender.

The dish here you're trying to cook is one where you want slow cooking to have the flavours of the sauce to penetrate into the meat and as that meat/fat tissue brakes down it will also be absorbing sauce.

hope this helps a bit.

don't know where you are or where you buy meat but from personal experienced I've never found a good stewing steak/meat in tesco always too lean and tough, I buy mine from waitrose, a butcher that does a reasonable one.

Hi azelias, very helpful reply thanks. I've got a waitrose near where I live so if you can let me know exactly which cut of beef it is next time you buy it, I'll be very grateful. I know the recipe calls for lamb or mutton (which I really dont like) and the spices mite be all wrong for beef, it really makes no difference to me because I loved the flavour anyway.

hi Savs

I've only just bought some more stewing meat from waitrose today and can confirm it is Feather steak on their meat counter, good value too something like ?8 per kilo and their normal cubed stewing meat is more than that.

by the way their normal cubed Aberdeen stewing meat is also a good second if you can't get their feather steak.

Last week I tried the skirt steak from the butcher but wasn't as pleased with it as the feather steak..even though they're so close on the animal.

The skirt steak is chewier even though is falling apart, not tough but more chewier than the feather...where's the feather melts after 2 hours in the oven braising at 160C fan.

is the meat you use for rogan josh cubed?

Cubed meat is for a stew, you cannot braise cubed meat.

Vindaloo is a stew, and uses cubed pork.

Rogan josh is a braise, and is made with meat on the bone, with half the meat out of the liquid. This technique browns the meat (which is out of the liquid) but that under the liquid (like a stew), never browns.

Hi Azelias, thanks very much. I'll definitely be trying feather steak. Do you buy it in large steaks or is it already cut into pieces? Also would you normally brown it first?

"Do you buy it in large steaks or is it already cut into pieces? Also would you normally brown it first?"

You buy it in large pieces like here in my photo of it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57951131@N07/sets/72157625841178715/detail/

From the cut piece you can see the big vein that runs through the middle, my husband is a fusspot so I remove it but I have left it in and it will melt down to a gelatinous texture, perfectly edible if you like that sort of thing.

I've stewed and casserole this cut and I have tried browning it first and last night short of time I just added to the onions once soften without browning.

If I brown it and it's in a big piece like this I'll just cut into say three pieces in order to fit into a pan to brown one large piece at a time. I hate browning cubes of meat it's so dull and takes forever! This way I still get some 'browning' flavour, the mallard reaction going on but it's super quick.

Here's an example of me browning some skirt steak in a large piece:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57951131@N07/sets/72157625841219281/

Once brown then if I want to cube it just cut into the size I want.

Should You Brown or Not Brown?

OK so you are adding extra flavour to the meat if you brown it first, and everything adds to the overall flavour at the end of it, just like in a casserole adding a bouquet garni will add to background flavour.

But I honestly think you only notice with two casseroles done side by side, OR if you are so use to eating only with the browning of the meat then suddenly not to brown you may detect a slight change. Your brain is really good at memorising particular taste.

What I've notice about browning the meat is it's a classic French method that's now accepted to add flavour but I don't know where it started before that.

What I do know is that in Portugal, Spain, Morrocan casserole/braising/stews dishes they don't traditionally brown the meat first and I suspect a lot of other cultures too.

I didn't brown last night and it's was absolutely fine, everyone loved the dish. I do it if I have the time and it's appropriate for the dish.

The one thing to bear in mind if you don't brown it first then it will create a bit of scum as it's coming to the boil when you've added your liquid, doesn't bother me, it's from the meat anyway, but that's the difference you'll notice on cooking it.

"Rogan josh is a braise, and is made with meat on the bone, with half the meat out of the liquid. This technique browns the meat (which is out of the liquid) but that under the liquid (like a stew), never browns. "

Just like this dish of Lamb shoulder in quinces, last photo:

http://www.azeliaskitchen.net/blog/lamb-quinces-and-cardamon-casserole/

If you're changing the whole concept of using beef instead of the traditional lamb/mutton possible other similar meat then you're not going to have a large piece of meat on the bone, so braising is not going to be appropriate for that.

It's still possible to have a delicious Rogan josh using beef even if cubed, it's just not the original...but cubed beef will produced a delicious stew tasting of rogan josh flavour, the same way a beef rendang is a delicious tasting stew.

Thank you so much Azelai. It looks really good, very marbled so lots of flavour. Can't wait to try it. You've been very helpful.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

There are just two complex or compound cooking methods,

stewing.

braising.

Stewing uses cubed meat which is cooked in simmering liquid, which is nearly all water. The meat is totally covered throughout the cooking process. The meat can be browned to start with, but that will toughen it.

Braising is meat cooked on the bone, so that the cooking liquid, which only comes up half way, comprises water and fat/oil. The meat can be browned beforehand, but as the meat out of the cooking liquid browns over time, and must be turned periodically, it is not necessary to brown the meat to start with.

A casserole can have so many meanings as to render the term virtually useless.

What you have with your lamb in quince is the meat starting off in water, and ending as a roast, it is not a braise by any definition I have seen. Had you started the meat in water and fat, and kept the lid tightly attached throughout cooking, that would be a braise. The carbohydrate from the quince would react with the protein in the meat forming new meaty flavours (Maillard reaction).

In Indian cooking, true braises are the true kormas, meat (lamb/mutton, sometimes chicken, but never fish) cooked in water/fat, like cream/yoghurt/butter/milk in a sealed pot, shaken frequently.

If you try to make a rogan josh from cubed beef, you will not get the meaty flavours (and rendered fat flavoured with spices) that a true lamb on the bone dish will give you. You might as well use a bottle of cook-in-sauce.

If you don't have meat on the bone, or prefer beef to lamb, then don't choose a dish which relies on it, choose something else. Would you make fish and chips from chicken and carrots?

Hi Lapis, I totally understand where you're coming from but I still enjoyed the flavour of my 'beef' rogan josh lol. Definitely not right but still nice and tasty. Could you suggest a good recipe more suitable for beef?

Most meat recipe can be used for beef, but they will not be the same, obviously. Keema/mince meat recipes work well with beef and chicken, not so well with pork. As far as I am concerned, if you like a particulr type of meat more than ohthers, you should be able to experiment with recipes and see which one works for you. It may not be authentic, but if you like it, that is what matters.

Mamta

Thanks Mamta! That's exactly what I was trying to say.

I don't need to say the last post was mine do I? lol...I forget to put the name in!

"The meat can be browned to start with, but that will toughen it. "

No it doesn't it, not if you choose the right cut for the slow cooking, browning according to those that I read like McGee gives the maillard reaction. The feather stead will be gorgeous and melting tender in 2 hrs!

Hi Savs, thanks for the understanding. It is not easy to get this point over. Indian recipes, like recipes from other long established cultures, have been developed over centuries, with the ingredients at hand. A recipe, such as rogan josh, was developed somewhere between Kashmir and Persia, to use goat or maybe mutton. The spicing would have been locally grown, for the most part, but also using locally mixed (though not locally sourced) garam masala. Ginger would be the powder, as fresh ginger would be hard to grow in cold climes. The curds (yoghurt) would be very sour whole milk, because that is the way it is. All these things would be chosen to compliment the meat, and cooking technique. The amount of spices chosen to accommodate flavour losses during prolonged cooking.

Change an ingredient or type of meat and everything changes, you have a different recipe. The results are likely to be a shadow of the real deal. If you like it, well, result, but do you know what you are missing? Indian (or any other cuisine, other than French) is not a sauce poured over a meat, the cooking and flavours are integral with the final result.

There is only one state in India where you will find real beef, that ir Kerala, all other states have 'beef', but that is buffalo. So an Indian dish that uses beef must be from Kerala. I don't know if Mamta has such a recipe.

And its not to do with authenticity, per se but of using the proper meat with the correct spices and method of cooking.

beef cooked in rogan josh, that is the essence of the argument. Rogan josh is a complete dish, it is not a sauce to be poured over something.

The meat juices and fats in beef are different to those in sheep/goat meat. They will react with other ingredients (sugars, fat breakdown products and other flavourings) differently, giving different final flavours. Such a dish is not a sum total of the flavours added, but more than the sum of the ingredients, because of the extra flavours that are (hopefully) produced.

Now I'm not saying a rogan josh type dish couldn't be developed to use beef, but using ingredients that go into sheep/goat rogan josh will not give the same results with beef, it will, no doubt, be inferior. Fish and chips or chicken and carrots?

At a scientific level, flavours are small molecule chemicals, detected by the nose. Lamb meat has a different flavour from beef, we all know that, but the fats are different flavours, and breakdown differently. The main difference between fresh grass fed lamb and non-grass fed lamb is in the fat. Many of the spice flavour chemicals react with meat proteins and fat breakdown products giving a specific set of new flavours.

Meat kept on the bone out of liquid will brown (Maillard reaction) but not brown under the liquid. This is to do with the excess water and lack of oxygen, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide necessary for flavour chemical formation. Roasting produces flavour from meat protein pyrolysis rather than Maillard, just as a beef steak is burnt to provide flavour, rather than the always sited 'caramelization', which cannot happen, as there are no sugars in meat.

adding my two penneth.

I would think that if you went to an area of any country and looked at any "standard" dish that each and every person would make it differently even within that area.

I know that "moussaka" is considered by most people to be a lamb mince dish with aubergine and a few other bits. However I read a book from a bloke who travelled around Cyprus and he and his family kept what would be called a "blog" today all about moussaka they had. The book contained where it was eating, what they thought about it and what it was made of... This differed from things like some would add potato, some would use tomatoes etc but more surprisingly lamb was rarely used. It would be mutton, goat, beef, pork, chicken, hinted at possibly even donkey (the book was from many moons ago).. basicaly each family would make it to a theme but with things they had/prefered/in season etc... so it was never really the same dish... but in general people still make it with lamb... doesn't mean the others are wrong.

Steve

Long time ago, nearluy 40 years to be precise, it was difficult to find lamb mince. As most Indian friends did not eat beef, I never used to make Keema when they were coming. One week, a close friend was coming for dinner. As he ate steaks, I decided to make keem with mince beef. He loved it, said it tasted very nice! For then on, he himself started using mince beef for it. So, recipes can work with different meats, and not necessririly to the worst effect. That is all I am saying. When people move from area A to B, they adapt to what is available.

I think if you change a massive amount from the recipe you are realistically creating a new recipe. However we all tweek and change things to suit are dietry needs/tastes/personal preferences and would still consider it to be the recipe we are following.

If you watch any of the more chatty tv cookery programmes, as soon as an ingredient is put in/mentioned, then some one will ask can I use this instead/what else could I use.

I'm sure if we all think back over the years you will even notice your own recipes have changed from the first time you made them. As you grow wiser you find better ways/easier ways of doing things, you find ingredients you had never heard of and like that extra they give to the recipe, you also find that you might want more garlic than when you first tried it, more chilli etc... So things do change. I'm also sure you will have decided to make one certain dish and then found the butcher was out of lamb/beef/chicken/pork etc that you wanted, so you use something else, ie frozen lamb mince instead of beef to make a lasagne.. its still lasagne but you would probably want to mention its made with lamb.. etc

Some dishes wouldn't be the same though. If you tried to make lamb kleftiko (leg/shank of lamb long slow cooked, with herbs and spices - Greek/Cypriot dish) with minced beef.. the same way you couldn't make beefburgers by putting a fish fillet on a bun.

Steve

all interesting stuff, and I cannot disagree with it, really, yes everyone modifies dishes to suit themselves, it happens.

Now I will relate a story that happened to me.

It was on the west coast of Ireland, in a town called Clifden, Connemara, Co. Galway. I went there with a friend (a corporate catering manager) to visit a well respected restaurant, but it was closed. Instead we entered a homestyle restaurant, which looked quite good. To my surprise, it had Tandoori fish on the menu, served with rice, well, what else! We ordered with great anticipation, having traveled a fair distance to eat.

What did I get? A piece of pan fried fish (which was very good) and a pot of yoghurt with raw spices in. This was tandoori fish? No way. I ate the fish, it was good, and I managed a few spoonfuls of very soggy rice! After the meal, I asked the waitress for pen and paper, and wrote out a recipe for tandoori fish, and another on how to cook rice properly. We never went back.

The moral of the fishy tale? People will cook exactly what they want to cook, whether its what you think it should be, or not. I am very often disappointed with the chefs' offerings, mainly because they just don't understand the basics, it would seem.

Now, unlike French cooking, there is no classic Indian recipe book, even those of the court of Akbar are no more than lists of ingredients. So what goes into an Indian dish is very much up to the individual, but those who know what they are doing will make a much better job of it. And those who do not will likely end up will something truly awful, akin to Indian restaurant food.

Today, even in these enlightened times, with internet access, a typical dish will have potatoes and tomatoes in it (for no apparent reason), finished with a sprinkling of garam masala and garnished with coriander leaf.

As for moussaka, I've not looked into the origins, but some common sense will lighten the way. Lamb or beef? pretty easy really. Think of Greece, and shepherd boys sat on the hillside, playing their pan pipes. Oops, given it away, shepherd, sheep, or mutton or goat, you don't see cows in one's mind when one thinks of Greece. And the other ingredients? Bechamel sauce (French, isn't it?) and cheddar cheese, potatoes, parmesan, allspice, mint, all found in moussaka recipes (outside of Greece).

My point, when making moussaka, use the ingredients the Greeks would use, and you get a product that is much better than minced beef topped with cheese sauce.

Greeks don't use the french type white sauce, theirs is a more stiff almost set sauce using egg.

In Cyprus you find pork is the most popular meat, so it might seem more likely that their mousakka is made with minced pork but as a general rule they make it with lamb in restaurants as thats what people are expecting.

Steve

stewing beef, kind of gives the game away, it is for stewing, that is, simmered, below 100?C, or else it gets tough. If you brown it, by frying in oil, it will become tough, because the heat makes it shrink and squeezes the water out. Keeping meat on the bone minimizes shrinkage, and therefore stays a little more tender.

If you are going to play the poverty card, where is the land to put the pig on,? and on what are you going to feed it. Sheep and goats just graze. And who is going to eat a whole pig in one go, especially in a hot country like Greece, it goes off far too quickly.

There is a moussaka that doesn't have any topping, makes a lot more sense. Minced lamb/goat, onions, aubergine and spices and herbs, sounds much more like it.

In Greece there is a different culture of eating than say in the UK. A pig/goat/sheep would be slaughtered and cooked and many people would come and eat. Rather than one family having to save it somewhere. Many families would meet, each bringing something to the table etc...

Steve

same in east London, not!

The only Greeks around here sell kebab'ed elephants' legs. [Made from lamb].

elephants legs...LOL...

I think the best kebab I've had (outside of my house) was in Turkey, but I think that was due to being starving to start with and doing a mile or so walk to find something to eat (after arriving that day, the time difference and missing the meals etc)...

Steve

Ha ha Elephants legs is also what I call them! Well today when I finished work, I decided to pop in waitrose and I bought a nice piece of feather steak as advised by Azelia. I decided after much debate that instead of making a 'beef' rogan josh, I would use the khada masala 1 recipe instead. I'm cooking it in my brand new, straight out of the box slow cooker and it'll be ready in 15 minutes! I can't wait, it smells bloomin gorgeous in my kitchen........I'll get back to ya!

All I can say is WOW! I must have said that word to myself about 50 times last night, every time I thought of that curry. I didn't brown or fry anything, I just chopped everything up and chucked it in my slow cooker. I was a bit worried about putting the tomatoes straight in because I've heard they can make the meat tough. Anyway 5 hours later after cooking on high, I had a perfectly balanced, beautifully tasting curry with the most tender, melt in the mouth meat I've ever had. If anybody is thinking of buying a slow cooker, I'd say go ahead and get it!

The recipe said leave out the last 5 ingredients until near the end but for slow cooking it just said chuck everything in. I was a bit confused by that but I decided to just cuck it all in straight away, apart from the fresh coriander which I saved til the end. Well I can't fault it, so it must have worked.

Savs, thats brilliant thanks for the report !

One of the lads at work has been singing the praise of his slow cooker lately. He's been doing legs of lamb, joints of beef etc in it and says its well worth getting one !

Steve