Food historian and critic Pushpesh Pant offered a colourful, exotic account of how Delhi ate in the court of the Mughals, where delicious food was the absolute norm. Also presented was a recipe for Jackfruit Biryani.
Today we offer you another recipe from his book, From The King's Table to Street Food: A Food History of Delhi, for Pasande.
Pasande was a meat dish served to the Mughal emperors and the word pasande indicates the choicest piece or cut usually for lamb or goat. These days the same preparation can be used for prawns, chicken or even paneer.
Pasande is a mutton recipe, brimming with spice, that uses especially tenderised mutton that has been pan-fried. Reserve making this gorgeous, kingly dish for a special lunch.
Pasande
Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus marination overnight
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves: 4 to 6
Ingredients
- 1 kg pasande or boneless mutton fillets, culled from the shoulder or hind leg, flattened with the back of a heavy butcher’s knife and scored with deep crisscross cuts to help tenderise the meat
- ¾ cup ghee or oil + extra for pan frying the onions
- ½ cup milk
- 1 cup water
- ½ tbsp green papaya paste or 2 tbsp yoghurt as tenderiser
- 4 medium-sized onions, peeled and finely sliced
- 2½ tbsp onion paste
- 1 tsp garlic paste
- 2 tsp ginger paste
- 1-2 tsp red chilly powder
- 1 tsp yellow chilly powder
- 4 tsp brown dhaniya or coriander powder
- ½ tsp haldi or turmeric powder
- 8-10 green elaichi or cardamom
- 2 bara or kala elaichi or black cardamom
- 2 tsp black peppercorns, freshly, coarsely ground
- 6-8 lavang or cloves
- 2 large tej patta or bay leaves
- 2 tsp salt
- 400 ml hung yoghurt, drained of all its water
Method
- Trim wash and pat dry the pasande.
Apply raw papaya paste or dahi to tenderise.
Keep aside for at least 1 hour or ideally overnight.
- Heat a little ghee/oil in a saucepan over medium heat and stir fry the onions till golden brown.
Drain with a slotted spoon onto a kitchen towel to remove excess oil or ghee.
When cool, grind with the cardamom and the cloves to a paste.
Keep aside.
- Heat the ghee/oil in a large saucepan and fry the pasande over medium heat till browned.
Gently flip once to ensure even cooking -- about 2 minutes on each side.
- Then add in the garlic, ginger, fried onion paste along with the turmeric, chilly powders, coriander, black pepper.
Add the bay leaves and the salt at this stage.
Continue to stir fry, sprinkling a little water to avoid scorching the spices till the oil separates.
Add a cup of water mixed with milk, hung yoghurt and cook uncovered over low heat for about 45 minutes till the meat is done to taste.
- Serve hot with steamed rice or butter naans
Excerpted from From The King's Table to Street Food: A Food History of Delhi by Pushpesh Pant, with the permission of the publishers, Speaking Tiger Books.