The week before last I ate at Shalimars with an Indian coworker. We were talking about Indian and Pakistani food, and she mentioned how her family operates some restaurants in India. She gave me the tip that these curries are frequently thickened by a mixture of poppy seeds, melon seeds, and cashew nuts. We were eating Bhuna Gosht, and she mentioned that she thought that was how they were thickening it, and it was very common in Pakistani cuisine. A good tip, I thought.
Today, I was looking to make a lamb curry to take to work tomorrow. I remembered this tip about the seeds thickening the curry, and decided to try it out. While trying to decide what to make, I realized that I could just try and make bhuna gosht. I searched and came up with a recipe. Evidently, "bhuna" is a method of cooking where a dry curry is sort of stir-fried, adding water when it becomes too dry. In western terms, I figure what is happening is that the food is getting successively carmelized and deglazed. After this process happens, water is added to make a nice curry sauce. So I made the recipe, thickening it with the poppy and cashew nuts as well as some yogurt, and it turned out very good, although I didn't end up with as much sauce as I would have liked. The bhuna gosht at Shalimars is swimming in a delicious, somewhat runny sauce. But my sauce is pretty good. Not quite Shalimars good, but it's a start.
Posted by ahyatt at September 14, 2003 11:06 PM