Mutton Varuval anyone?!

Oh, I know it sounds so sinful, but I finally got the recipe to make this from a cabbie, last Friday on the way home from work. As we were in Malacca by friday midnight, we went to the market near Melaka Sentral first thing Saturday morning to get some fresh ingredients for an aromatic platterful of high cholesterol dinner to be served that night! MiL was so impressed she asked me to write down the recipe for her! So here are all that you need to know;

Ingredients

• 1 kg of mutton, cut into small pieces (as it will cook faster)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 tablespoon cumin
• fresh ginger about 4 inches (more if you like)
• 5-6 cloves garlic
• 15-20 dried chilies (15-moderate hot, 20-HOT!)
• about 10 shallots sliced
• 1 star anise
• a few cardamom pods
• 1 cup yogurt (I used the Indian version called Thairu)
• 2 tablespoon thick soya sauce
• curry leaves
• salt

Method:

To make the marinade, first boil the dried chilies in water to soften. Remove as much seeds as you can by draining the chilies in a colander a few times, under running water. Pound 1 cinnamon stick and 1 tablespoon cumin in a mortar & pestle (lesung) until powdery. Don't try to use a food processor unless you have a dry mill small enough!

Meanwhile, peel garlic & ginger, chop coarsely and put in a food processor/blender. Add the drained dried chilies and cinnamon & cumin powder and process for a few minutes into a thick paste, add a little water if necessary. Or, better thing to do is to add some yogurt to get the processor going.

Put the washed and drained mutton pieces in a large bowl, add the spice paste, a bit of salt, and the rest of the yogurt and mix well. Cover with a cling film and leave it to marinate in the fridge for at least 4-5 hours. (I put mine in the fridge at 10.30am and took it out at 5pm).

Meat in marinade

Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a wok, add shallots, cinnamon, star anise and cardamom seeds (you need to pop the cardamom open to take out the little seeds from them), I also added few pieces of dried chilies just for aesthetic purposes. When the shallots are translucent, add the marinated mutton pieces and cook, uncovered, on moderate fire. Stir at random intervals.

When the meat is almost done (there will be some oil bubbling around the meat and no liquid left), reduce fire to low, sprinkle salt to taste, the rest of cumin and the thick soya sauce. Give it a good stir to mix them all up and finally throw in some curry leaves to finish. It smells just so heavenly.

Honestly, I'm not so much of a mutton person, but this was just fantastic! No, I'm not gloating, all credits to the real nice 'uncle' from Supercab!

I actually took this shot AFTER everyone had dinner as I forgot to do it earlier. Hehe. But don't they look so very good, nevertheless? I just thought they weren't black enough as they are in Indian restaurants, perhaps the next time I should add more soya sauce.

We also got some really nice Gula Melaka from the same market and I intend to use them for Sago Gula Melaka. Need to make it in the next few days for hubz preggie colleague, Kim. Will post immediately after!