I’m beyond blessed and eternally grateful that despite a very difficult year (for everyone), my parents braved international travel and visited me towards the end of 2020. My mom spent a good couple of months here, allowing us time to do something we’ve essentially never had time for before: to just chill out and enjoy each other’s company and the simple pleasures of life. You see, my mother has been a practicing doctor her whole life, and her holidays were always rationed and mostly allocated to my late grandmother. Whenever I visited Jeddah, I’d only really see my mom in the evenings,  I used to get only a week a year of her in Dubai, and for the first time, I had the luxury of having her over for longer because she quit her job this year, and to say it was utterly and whole-heartedly wonderful would be the understatement of the year. My dad joined later for a little while, somehow 5 whole years had gone by since he had last visited, and my heart was full and life complete. Meals were also worth putting more of an effort into, Exhibit A: this Mutton Karahi .

Because it wasn’t my parent’s first trip to Dubai (and hopefully won’t be the last), there really wasn’t any fomo or desire to go out much, and we were also being extra cautious thanks to the monster that is COVID-19. As a result (and also as a precautionary measure), there was a lot of home cooking, and I was truly living my best life, getting fresh phulkaas and deep, rich curries every single day. The “Alhumdulillahs” that followed every meal have never been more heartfelt. My parents, M and I, getting to enjoy so many meals together on my table felt like an unparalleled blessing. Sure, we missed my sister, but you get what I mean!

I also took this opportunity to try and learn some Pakistani recipes from my mom. Pakistani cooking is a time-intensive labour about of love, and the fact that most of my attempts never taste like my mom’s or late grandmother’s cooking is only but discouraging. I have never, in my 7 years of marriage once cooked mutton, which is a shame as M absolutely loved mutton. This time around, my mom taught me some nice mutton recipes, one of which was Mutton Karahi. I was surprised to see how different the recipe, steps, ingredients and flavours are from Chicken Karahi (my favourite), but boy oh boy was it a crowdpleaser.

Here’s how we made it (we made a really big portion, feel free to divide it all by 3!):

Ingredients:

• 3kg Pakistani mutton (2 kgs were bone-in and 1 kg was boneless). This isn’t sponsored by them but I love their quality and pricing and always buy my Pakistani mutton from them, so here’s a shout out to Al Joori Meat Shop.
• 1-1.5 cups of ghee (you can always remove the excess later, and you can also use a neutral vegetable oil instead of ghee)
• 6 bay leaves
• 4- 5 cups of roughly chopped onions
• 1.5 kilos tomatoes
• 4-5 Tbs ginger paste
• 4-5 Tbs garlic paste
• 4-5 tablespoons of fresh green chili paste
• 2-3 tsp salt (depending on how strong your salt is)
• 3 Tbs toasted and crushed coriander seeds
• 3 Tbs chili flakes
• 2 Tbs red chili powder (I used Thai chili powder and it was FIRE)
• 3/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1.5-2 tsp crushed cardamom
• 3-4 teaspoons chaat masala
• 3-4 teaspoons cumin
• 1.5-2 cups of yogurt (depending on how liquidy or dry you want your karahi to be)
• 3 Tbs julienned ginger for garnish
• 3 Tbs roughly chopped cilantro for garnish
• 2 limes, to juice on top of the garnish

Method:

1. Place the bay leaves, ghee and onions into a large enough wok, or a deep, heavy-bottomed cooking pot. Sautee the onions until they soften and become translucent
2. While the onions are sautéing, blanch your tomatoes by submerging them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes, removing them and placing them in an ice bath. Remove the skins and roughly chop the tomatoes.
3. Once the onions have become translucent, mix in the ginger, garlic and green chili paste. Sauté for about 5 minutes, and then mix in the mutton.
4. As soon as the meat changes color, throw in the roughly chopped tomatoes.
5. Sprinkle on about 3 tsp of salt (again, this depends on the strength of your salt and how salty you like your food, but also remember this is 3 kilos of meat)
6. Add about 2 cups of water, cover with a lid and let it simmer on medium to low heat for one hour so the meat can soften.
7. An hour later, the water should have reduced to about 1/4, and if it didn’t, remove the lid and crank up the heat. Leaving the meat in the water for too long can make it fall apart, so you don’t want to do that either.
8. Finally, mix in all the remaining dry spices, and let those spices bloom and render in the ghee on high heat. Make sure you keep scraping the bottom of the pan because the heat is high and you d0n’t want anything to stick and burn. Bask in the aromatics. In case you need to deglaze, add only splashes of water at a time.
9. Once you see the oil separate and feel the spices have bloomed nicely, mix in 1.5-2 cups of whisked yogurt. Mix well on high flame for a couple of minutes and you’re done.
10. Serve in the wok, generously garnished julienned ginger, fresh cilantro, and fresh lime. And green chilies if you can handle the heat.
11. Enjoy this Mutton Karahi with Roghni Naan.