Saag Gosht (Lamb in spinach)

I'm part way through making this again, because (a) it's delicious, (b) the kids love it, (c) it's got the greens built right in, (d) it reheats fairly well, which is important as we generally eat late/at weird times Mon-Thu, and (e) it's my favourite Indian restaurant dish.

This version is from Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni (publ 1980). All the recipe titles are in English, although three decades on, the recognition of the Indian names would be much wider. For example, the suggested appetizer is "Savoury Pastries with Spicy Potato Filling" (aka samosas). "Whole Wheat Flaky Bread" (roti?) or "Baked Whole Wheat Puffy Bread" (naan?) are two of the suggested breads.

Saag Gosht is essentially a slow cooked meat casserole, which had a whole heap of spinach stirred through just before serving. Like any good slow cooked meat casserole, it takes time, and further improves with resting. But other than the time factor, it's pretty straightforward. I haven't modified the recipe much here (except to convert it to metric), which makes a very subtly flavoured curry - no kick, no kid-unfriendly flavours. If you do make it (which I highly recommend), let me know what modifications you make, and how it goes.

Oh, and it's fairly easy to scale up or down - I made a full recipe tonight; previously, I've made a 2/3 scale, as the meat was only 1kg.

Saag Gosht (recipe serves 8-10)

Ingredients (don't be scared off - it's long, but if you cook foreign food at all, you probably have most of these in your pantry, and what you don't have, the supermarket will)

• 1.5kg lamb forequarter (else 1.5kg beef cheeks), chopped into 1½" (4cm) cubes - it must be meat with a lot of connective tissue so you get the delicious melt-in-your-mouth sensation. Lamb leg gets tough with stewing, as do many other cuts.
• 3-4 T olive oil, or light vegetable oil
• 3 large onions, thinly sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 3-4 cm ginger, finely chopped (to yield 3T)
• 1 T ground cumin
• 2 T ground coriander
• 1 t turmeric
• 1 tin diced tomatoes, no added salt (440g tin), else three finely chopped tomatoes
• 3 green chillies, else 1-2 red chillies, seeded and finely chopped (wear disposable gloves when chopping chillies -  you won't cause yourself excruciating pain by rubbing your eye, even after thoroughly washing your hands)
• 3 T plain yoghurt or sour cream (or creme fraiche, if that's what you've got left in your fridge...)
• For the bouquet garni:
• 1 cinnamon stick, 3" / 7-8 cm long, broken into pieces (or not)
• 6 black, or 12 green, cardamom pods
• 9 whole cloves
• 3 bay leaves, crumbled (or as I pluck mine from the tree, torn)
• 6" square (15cm sq) piece of double thickness cheesecloth, or similar size of clean cotton pillowslip, which had a hideous big tear in the middle that you can't be bothered mending. A clean hanky would do.
• String, say 1½' or 50cm long (cooking string, not blue string - I've seen Bridget Jones' Diary)
• Something to bash it with - a rolling pin, a tenderising mallet, etc
• 1 T kosher salt (not widely available here, cooking salt, or pink salt are fine)
• 4 cups/1 litre boiling water
• 4 t garam masala 
• 3 cups cooked spinach (3 250g packs of frozen spinach, nuked to thaw works perfectly well)

Method

Part 1 - Make the casserole
In a big cast iron casserole dish (I use my 28cm Le Creuset 6.8L french oven thingy), heat the pan over a high heat, then add a tablespoon or two of oil. Brown the meat in batches, to make sure the pan stays hot. I take two to three batches for a full quantity recipe, using a very high heat. Set the browned meat aside, and reduce the heat to medium

If you need to add more oil, do, but I find the lamb has usually given up enough fat that it's not necessary. Add the onions, and saute until caramel brown, stirring constantly to prevent burning. This can take half an hour, so be patient.

Next add the garlic and ginger, stir fry for a couple of minutes. Then add the cumin, turmeric and coriander, and stir again (this ends up quite dry at this point). Add the tomatoes and chillies, and continue cooking until the whole thing is a pulpy mess. Now add the yoghurt/sour cream, and stir through. Remove from the heat, and allow to cool somewhat. (This is a good time to make the bouquet garni/spice bag)

Once the onion/tomato/spice stuff has cooled, you need to puree it. I use a stick blender, as it saves getting it out of the pan into a blender or whizzer, and then back into the pan. Whatever floats your boat/electrical appliance works. Add the meat to the onion/tomato/spice mix in the casserole dish, together with your bouquet garni/spice bag.

Add about a litre of boiling water along with the salt, and stir to distribute. Cover tightly with a lid, and bring to the boil. Transfer the whole lot to a slow to moderate over (say, 150C) for three or so hours, or until the meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender. Check it every now and again to make sure it hasn't boiled dry. If you still have oodles of liquid, we'll reduce it at the next stage.

As with all good casseroles, this dish improves with time. I generally allow the stew to cool in the oven overnight, and then heat it up again the next night. As long as your food prep was decent, and you haven't stuck a licked spoon into the cooled stew, you shouldn't have any food risks.


Part 1a - Make the bouquet garni/spice bag
Put the bouquet garni ingredients into the centre of your hanky/square of pillowslip/double layer of cheesecloth. Gather up the edges, and tie firmly with the string. You'll end up with a little pouch. Then bash the contents of the pouch with your bashing device of choice. You don't want to pulverise it, but you do want the cardamom pods crushed open, and the cinnamon stick in bits. Set aside. (In reality, you can make this a bit further down, but it's easier to separate it out.


Part 2 - Add the spinach, garam masala and serve
Get the casserole out of the oven, or wherever else you've put it, and gently reheat the stew. The meat will be falling apart, so stir gently. While you're doing this, prepare the spinach.

For me, this means emptying out three packs of chopped frozen spinach (NOT the finely chopped stuff - that sh!t just goes everywhere) into a microwave safe container, and nuking it for ten minutes on medium-high. I then squeeze out the worst of the moisture, but it doesn't need to be as dry as when you're making cannelloni or spanakopita. The spinach then needs to be pureed.

Remove the bouquet garni/spice bag, squeezing hard to get out as much juice as possible, then discard the bag. Fold in the spinach and the garam masala, again stirring gently so you don't break the meat pieces. Let the whole thing warm up again, taste for salt and other seasonings, then remove from the heat and allow to rest for ten minutes (while you nuke the pappadams, set the table, summon the kids, etc).

Serve with whatever takes your fancy: basmati rice, pappadams, roti or naan. Put some yoghurt on the table for the kids/for colour, and enjoy.

Leftovers will keep for a couple of days, and like most slow cooked stews, they freeze well. Defrost and reheat gently so the spinach doesn't go urky.

Note: pappadams don't need to be fried like they say on the pack. They're perfectly adequate and a heckuva lot lower in fat if you nuke them. For the small ones (3" diameter), four spread equally around the microwave platter cook in around 45sec. They buckle and expand as they cook, and crisp up as they cool down. You can spray or brush them with oil before cooking, but it's unnecessary, and doesn't add much to the flavour.