Recipe: Baby goat chops with fenugreek (sindhi methi gosht)

A delicious recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery

This delicious recipe comes from my Sindhi friend, Indur Shivdesani, an inspired home cook. In India, when we say the word for ‘meat’ – gosht – we generally mean goat. Indians use a pressure cooker to cook their everyday gosht. Without a pressure cooker, it takes three hours. I often take that longer time, as I can read and still give the occasional stir when needed. But Indur has convinced me that the taste of baby goat is much more delicate than more mature goat and it cooks without a pressure cooker in just over an hour. So I have taken to following his recipe. It does require an overnight marinade, which can be reduced to a couple of hours if you are rushed.

You need to find a very good, trustworthy halal butcher if you want the very best baby goat. Ask around, ask Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi neighbours and someone will help you. What you need for this dish are baby goat rib chops. Baby goats are defined as weighing 9kg-13.6kg.

I do not use fresh fenugreek in this recipe as it is hard to find. I use dried fenugreek, kasuri methi, as you can buy a whole box and it will stay usable for more than a year.

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1kg baby goat rib chops
• 150ml natural yogurt (Indian-style yogurt is best)
• 1½tbs ground coriander seeds
• 2tsp ground cumin seeds
• ½tsp ground turmeric
• 1tsp chilli powder, ideally Kashmiri chilli powder
• 1tbs peeled and finely grated fresh ginger, plus 1tsp
• 5 large garlic cloves, peeled and finely grated or crushed
• 2-3 green bird’s eye chillies, or small green chillies, finely chopped
• Salt
• 1½tbs lime or lemon juice
• 4tbs vegetable oil
• 2 black cardamom pods
• 4 green cardamom pods
• 4-5 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 5 black peppercorns
• 5cm cinnamon stick
• 2 medium onions, peeled, halved, then sliced into fine half-rings
• 450ml water
• 1tbs tomato purée
• Handful (4-5 tablespoons) dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi)
• ½tsp Garam masala, ideally homemade
• Fresh green coriander leaves

Method

Wash the meat in water, drain, then shake the remaining water off. Put it in a large bowl that holds it easily. Add the yogurt, ground coriander, cumin, turmeric, chilli powder, the one tablespoon ginger, four of the grated or crushed garlic cloves, the green chillies, ½ teaspoon salt and the lime or lemon juice. Mix well with your hands. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or at least for two hours.

Put the oil in a large, heavy, stainless-steel, non-stick or casserole-type pot and set over a medium-high heat. When hot, put in the black cardamom, green cardamom, cloves, bay leaf, peppercorns and cinnamon. Stir for one minute, or until they turn a shade darker. Add the sliced onions and cook, stirring, for six or seven minutes or until golden with slightly browned edges. Add the remaining one teaspoon ginger and grated or crushed garlic clove. Stir.

Add all the chops, but hold off on the marinade left in the bowl. Stir and brown the chops for five minutes, reducing the heat a little if needed. Add the remaining marinade and stir a few times. Add the measured water, the tomato purée and one teaspoon salt. Stir a few times. Rub the kasuri methi between your palms and let it fall over the chops. Stir all to mix and bring to the boil. Cover tightly.

Reduce the heat to low and cook gently for 60-75 minutes, stirring now and then but always re-covering, until the meat is tender. Check for salt, adding more if you wish.

Add the garam masala and stir it in. Scatter the fresh green coriander on top and serve.

Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey (Bloomsbury, £20)