Recipe : Mutton Chops - Kerala Style - from Flavours of the Spice Coast

I roughly followed Mrs K M Mathew's Recipe from Flavours of the Spice Coast. I had earlier tried Chicken Piralen from the same book. While her book is wonderful and has some lovely looking dishes, I wouldn't recommend it to a newbie cook or someone completely unfamiliar with Malyali (Kerala) cuisine. The instructions aren't precise, so unless you know where you are headed and have a fair idea of what you want you dish to taste like, you may find the book quite confusing.

When I made the dish, I mainly used her ingredients with a few changes and roughly followed her recipe with some modifications. It was quite easy to throw together as I just had to chop up some onions, everything else I used powders and pastes.

Ingredients:
1 kg mutton
salt to taste
1 cup water
1 tsp oil - (regular not coconut)
3-4 onions chopped (1.5 cups)
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1.5 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp pepper powder
juice of 1 lemon (or more to taste)
1 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds
4 cloves
4" cinnamon
2 pods of cardamom

Method:
Wash & clean mutton and cook on low flame with the water and some salt.
Drain and reserve stock.

Heat oil, add onion and fry till brown

Add ginger garlic paste and fry some more.

In a bowl, mix all the powders with a little water and add to the onions

Fry well, then add the meat and brown.
Add 1 cup stock(add water if not enough stock) and lime juice, lower heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Powder the whole spices roughly and add to the mutton.

When gravy thickens, take off the fire. Garnish with corriander leaves and serve hot with rice or Roti

Read a review of Flavours of the Spice Coast in The Hindu