One day he said " Be careful when an American uses the word interesting while eating food"
I asked " What do you mean"
"Americans always use very superlative adjectives for things they like..awesome, fantastic, yummy , out of the world etc. But if they dont like some thing they will never use any bad adjective like horrible food, cant eat this stuff etc etc . Instead they will say " Intersting" , which means very bad but I am trying to make it interesting. So if you call an American for dinner and if he uses the adjective interesting, dont cook it in future"
So it is a joke in our family and among closed friends circle ..If any one says interesting we immediately ask " American Interesting or normal interesting"?
Most of you are in USA, so I dont know how far it is true, but I liked it.
So here the dish is not American Interesting.
THE RECIPE
This dish is very simple to cook and fast. It needs only curd and onion for the gravy and a typical seasoning.
You walk into most of the restaurant in down town Calcutta, you will get a very well known dish called Razela , mainly cooked with the ribs and chops of mutton and chicken too. Of course Chicken Razela doesn't stand any where near the mutton one. But it is quite tasty "the chicken-way" for people who don't eat Mutton.
Most restaurants claim, it as their special and they were the originators of the dish. I have been eating Razela since 60s when I came to Calcutta. All Razelas are more or less same, but the most famous one was served at Sabir's in Chandni Chowk area of Calcutta. No one can match their taste.
After lot of discussions with experts and experiments long back, I arrived at this Razela, which people say, it is close to the Sabirs.
The gravy has a very different taste and I tried vege version which people love it too, including the carnivores.
In this posting I shall give a detailed method for the Mutton Razela and only photographs and tips for the Vege version. The chicken one is not presented here as I haven't cooked in recent past.
I am giving here
MUTTON RAZELA
POTATO RAZELA
PANEER RAZELA WITH POTATO OPTION
GOBI ( CAULIFLOWER) RAZELA WITH CARROT (OPTION)
INGREDIENTS
lamb or goat meat 500 gms ( normally rib with a layer of fat and chops are used. You may use other parts with bone or boneless too. As you know, mutton cooked with bone gives a very rich taste. Choice of meat portion is yours)
Common for all vege and non vege dishes
fresh thick curd 300 gms
onion 300 gms
( you can use more or less depending upon how much gravy you want. but the onion and curd should be approximately of same quantity. The gravy is thin)
for the gravy
Freshly ground or crushed white pepper 1 level tsp ( black pepper is also good) add more if you want.
bay leaf 1
cardamum 2
clove 2
cinnamon 1 inch approx. broken
sugar 2 tsp level
salt to taste
For the seasoning
Bay leaf 1
Dry red chili 1
black pepper 1 tsp slightly heaped or heaped.
cardamom 3
clove 3
cinnamon 1.25 inch broken.
Ghee 5 tbsp ( about 75 ml, more the merrier)
Garnishing
Dry Red chili whole 5-6
Wash meat and keep aside.
Grind onion to a fine and smooth paste.
Add curd to the onion paste and mix throughly in a blender or mixer ( this is important)
Mix pepper powder.
Mix the meat , the spice for the gravy and marinate for 1 hr. If you dont have time, straight proceed for cooking. You can do this step in the pressure cooker or thick bottom vessel that you will be using for cooking.
Add sugar and salt and cook under pressure.DO NOT ADD WATER. THERE IS SUFFICIENT WATER IN MEAT , CURD AND ONION Australian and New Zealand Lamb will cook in 6-8 minutes, Indian lamb (God knows). If you are not using pressure cooker, adjust water from time to time. The gravy is thin finally. When the meat is done stop cooking.
Add or remove water to get a thin and not so thick consistency. Adjust salt.
In a Skillet / Kadhai, add ghee and heat, throw in the seasoning. As soon as the aroma comes, pour the seasoning into the Meat vessel and cover.
Bring to boil and boil for 2 mibutes, covered.
Put the raw dry red chili to garnish.
Dish is ready.
This photo is without flash
This photo is with flash
NOTE: The dish will not have any pungent onion smell, so don't worry. The pungent onion smell comes if you add onion paste in hot oil and don't fry properly.Some people add a bit of ginger garlic paste, which I don't. If you want you can give 1 tsp of the paste.
Mixing of onion paste and curd is important. When the curd curdles, it will be dispersed evenly with onion, giving a smooth thin gravy.
For more gravy add more curd onion paste mix at the beginning.
This dish needs good quantity of ghee, so don't reduce, you may add more.
VEGE RAZELA
Ingredients and Process remain same. Only minor change in treating the vege or Paneer.
Potato Razela
Boil Potato , peel and cut into large pieces.
Fry to condition or stabilize the potato surface. No browning is necessary.
You can use boiled potato as it is. I fry a bit.
Proceed with making the gravy as above (without the potato). Boil for 5-8 minutes, covered. Adjust water ( remember Potato will adsorb lot of water, so you may keep it thin or can add water later.)
Add Potato , boil for a minute, give seasoning and proceed as above.
Potato Razela
Paneer Razela
Cut paneer in large size, say 1 inch thick , 2 X 1/1.2 inch. ( you decide the size, but don't make thin as it would be fried.)
Fry the Paneer to light brown and proceed as Potato Razela.
Potato paneer Razela
Proceed as above, given with Potato and Paneer.
Cauliflower Razela ( with Carrot , option)
I generally cook this with Cauliflower only. But someone insisted , to use carrot this time..( else Carrot will be there in the break fast with additional germinated green gram, raw turmeric, Jaggery et al..the standard punishments for me.. you know ).But the taste was good.
You may try Cauliflower alone raw, and also souteed cauliflower to get that light aroma.
It will be same as that with meat,
Marinate the raw cauliflower, carrot and proceed with normal boiling until the Cauliflower gets cooked. Proceed as above after the Cauliflower is cooked.
Similarly you can make Potato-Cauliflower Razela, I love it.
Dear Friends, I am taking a break due to some very important work and I may not get time to read all the postings and learn and put my appreciations. I shall make it up in February. And I will be very angry if any one deletes my name from the blog follower list..and I may put huge quantity of hot red chili powder secretly in the next recipe ha ha
Keep blogging,,my most favorite pastime is to read recipes...
Amendments
1. This dish is normally eaten with roti, chapati, paratha, tanduri roti, bread, Nan , mainly wheat product, But being a Bengali I ate with rice too.
2. There is a very nice chicken rezala recipe by Kalyan of Knife. I forgot to mention. Please try here . Apart from the recipe, Kalyan has given an excellent write up on Rezala.
1. This dish is normally eaten with roti, chapati, paratha, tanduri roti, bread, Nan , mainly wheat product, But being a Bengali I ate with rice too.
2. There is a very nice chicken rezala recipe by Kalyan of Knife. I forgot to mention. Please try here . Apart from the recipe, Kalyan has given an excellent write up on Rezala.
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