Aloo gosht, the way it was made at home

Every house makes aloo gosht, and every house makes it differently. But when it goes wrong, it is almost always the same reason: the spices went in at the wrong moment.

This serves four.

What you need

• Half a kilo of mutton or beef, on the bone
• 3 medium potatoes, in large pieces
• 2 onions, finely sliced
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• Half a cup of oil
• Salt

The spices:

• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• Half tsp cumin powder
• Half tsp garam masala
• 2 bay leaves

Method

1. Heat the oil, add the bay leaves, then the onions. Take them to golden, not brown. Browned onions turn the salan bitter, and this is the most common mistake in the whole dish.

1. Add the ginger-garlic, fry for a minute, then the meat. Let it change colour over a high flame.

1. Now add the turmeric, chilli and coriander powder — all three together, followed immediately by two tablespoons of water. Ground spices burn in bare oil; the water is what saves them.

1. Add the tomatoes, cover, and let them collapse. When the oil separates and rises, the bhunai is done.

1. Add water and let the meat tenderise — 40 minutes for mutton, an hour for beef. Potatoes go in for the last 20 minutes only, or they will fall apart.

1. One minute before you turn off the stove, add the cumin powder and garam masala, and put the lid on.

Why that last step is last

Garam masala added at the start loses its aroma over the whole cooking time. You did add the spice — it simply is not in your pot any more.

This is also why ground spice is worth keeping in small quantities. A packet that has been open for months has nothing left to give, even in the last minute.

Where the spice actually shows

Aloo gosht has five spices in it. There is no onion paste, no cream, no fried masala base to hide behind — so whatever is in the packet is what lands on the table.

That is why it is worth being fussy about three of them:

• Turmeric. Ours is the colour of mustard, not neon. If your salan turns a bright yellow the moment the haldi goes in, that colour came from somewhere other than a root.
• Red chilli. Ours is a deep matte red. Dyed chilli looks better in the packet and leaves the colour on your fingers — try rubbing a pinch on white paper.
• Coriander powder. The easiest of all to bulk out with husk. Stir a spoon into water: what floats is not coriander.

We are not going to tell you our masala makes food delicious. Salt, heat and patience do that. What good spice does is smaller and more honest — it means the amount the recipe asks for is actually the amount you need.

All the spices in this recipe are on our shop page, in 50g if you want to try before you commit.