Recipe : Brain Cutlets

On my recent review of Daddy's Deli, Bangalore, I had described their wonderful brain cutlets, so a friend asked if I knew how to make them.

There was a time when we made these cutlets quite frequently at home, but nowadays, its really tough to get clean mutton brains in a quantity large enough to make these cutlets, especially in Ahmedabad. You will normally find these cutlets (if available) in a Parsi restaurant / cafe.

Its pretty easy to make at home, if you get brains that are completely cleaned.

Method :
Clean the mutton brains and cook in water salt and pepper.

Drain the brains, mash them and mix finely chopped onions, green chillies, fresh coriander and salt & pepper to taste.
(proportion - mashed brain 80-90% and 10-20% cuttings)

Form into cutlets.
Dip in a beaten egg and fry. (deep fry is better, but shallow frying works too and is healthier)

Serve hot with tomato sauce or green chutney.

The creamy flavour with the kick of green chilli is delightful.

Recipe: Mutton Liver Fry

In recognition of Eid, I felt like cooking mutton liver. A dish that a friends mother had cooked for me a couple of years ago when we were invited to iftaar (the evening meal that breaks the days fast).

Its been a really really low key Eid this year. The last 4 years we have celebrated Eid in Egypt, Turkey, Morocco and Dubai. So it feels weird to be in Delhi this year where Ramdan and Eid celebrations are restricted to a few quarters of the city, rather than the whole country celebrating and observing what could be considered the most important event in the Muslim calendar.

We didn't visit the old city during Ramadan this year. The rains, the CWG mess and B's tryst with food poisoning a couple of weeks ago, made eating roadside food too risky given his weakened digestive system.

So just to feel a bit festive and to mark this occassion, I decided to cook this mutton liver dish at home and served it with hot phulkas.

I used mutton liver in this recipe, but it can be easily replaced with chicken liver. Chicken liver cooks much faster, so make sure the masala is completely cooked before adding the liver.

Ingredients:
1/4 kilo mutton liver - clean, wash rinse and cubed
2 medium onions - chopped
2 medium tomatoes - chopped
2-3 green chillies (optional) - sliced or slit (depends on how you like it, sliced will be more spicy while eating)
corriander leaves to garnish  - chopped
juice of half a lime
1 tbsp fresh grated coconut (optional - don't use dessicated)
1 sprig curry leaves
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsps of your favorite meat masala (biryani masala or kitchen king masala or rajma masala can be substituted - if you don't have any of these, just add 1/2-1 tsp garam masala)
salt to taste
oil

Method:
Pour some oil in a hot pan. (I used just 1 tsp, but it really tastes best if you use 2-3 tbsps)
Drop the curry leaves into the hot oil and give a quick swirl so the curry leaf taste infuses the oil.
When leaves crispen, add the chopped onion.

When it turns pinkish, add the chopped tomatoes, green chillies, ginger garlic paste and coconut if using.

Fry well until cooked and the oil seperates from the mix.
Add the chilli, turmeric and meat masala powders and mix well.

Then add the liver and fry/saute on low flame till its done about 10-15 minutes

The liver should be light pink on the inside, if its too red then its undercooked. If it gets overcooked, it will be dry and crumbly
Squeeze the juice of half a lime. Liver is high in iron and sprinkling lemon juice aids the absorption capacity of the body

Take off the flame when done, garnish with corriander leaves and serve hot with rotis or rice and dhal.