Kosha Mangsho (Bengali Mutton Curry)

Here is another of my favorites from Bengali cuisine – juicy mutton pieces cooked in delicious velvety onion gravy. Perfect cook for a lazy Sunday Morning.
I knew Mangsho stands for meat so I googled the meaning of Kosha and came across this piece on Wikipedia which says that Kosha means fried for a long time with ground and whole spices over high heat until shallot/garlic/ginger have dissolved into a thick paste.

Trust me, you will end up licking your fingers at the end of this dish.

Here is my recipe for this very famous Bengali dish. It may not be the original recipe – but is inspired from the different recipes I came across on the internet.

Warning: This dish requires you to spend considerable amount of time sauteing over small flame and this impacts the taste of the dish. So if you are not in a mood to stand in front of the gas for a long time, please dont attempt this dish !

Ingredients
750 grams mutton with bone (the bone adds to the flavor of this dish so try not using boneless mutton for this)
3 medium sized potatoes cut into equal halves
4 medium sized onions
Garam masala
Mustard oil
12 black peppers
3 bay leaves
4 whole cardamoms
8 cloves
1 inch cinnamon
Sugar
Ginger Garlic paste – 1 tsp

For the marinade
3 tbsp curd
Turmeric -1/2 tsp
Green chillies – 3
7-8 cloves of garlic
1 inch piece of ginger
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
Salt to taste
1/2 onion
Mustard oil -1 tsp
Method

1. Grind all ingredients listed under for the marinade to a smooth paste and keep aside.
2. Clean and Marinate the mutton with the marinade, prick the mutton pieces with a fork so that the marinade is absorbed and keep aside for atleast 1 hour before cooking. You can marinate the mutton the previous night and keep it in the refrigerator for better taste.
3. Roughly grind black pepper, cinnamon,  cloves, and cardamom with a mortar and pestle and keep aside
4. Deskin the potatoes and cut into 2 pieces each . Heat 1 tbsp mustard oil in a pressure cooker pan. Shallow Fry the potatoes till they turn golden brown. Keep them aside.
5. In the same pressure cooker pan, add 2 tbsp mustard oil. When the oil reaches smoking point, add bay leaves and roughly ground  spices and saute for 3-4 mins on a low flame.
6. Add 4 grated onions to the oil and saute. Add 1 tsp sugar to the onions and a pinch of salt. The sugar imparts a nice red colour to the gravy and the sweetness enhances the flavours of this gravy.
7. Fry the onions till the oil starts separating from the mixture.
   Add 1 tsp ginger garlic paste and fry again. If you like your gravy very spicy, you can add 2 more green chillies here. Note I have not added any red chilli powder to this dish as green chillies enhance the flavor of this dish.
8. Next add the mutton with the marinade and saute on a low flame for a good 45 mins ensuring that the mutton is well immersed in the gravy.
9. Add 2 cups water to the gravy and pressure cook for 5 to 6 whistles. You can add water according to the consistency of the gravy you desire.
10. Remove the pressure from the pan and add the fried potatoes and 1 tsp garam masala and cook for another 10 mins on a low flame.
11. The mutton will cook to be soft and succulent and the gravy will have a deep brown color at the end of the cooking.
12. You can garnish it with finely chopped coriander leaves.
13. Serve hot with either steamed rice, luchis or rotis.

 

Tagged with: bengali, curry, Gravy, mutton