Tangi Mutton (a little flavour experiment)

 I was thinking of a dish I tasted long ago (I forgot even where and when) called "Chicken Tangerine." I remembered it to be a flavour explosion inside my mouth. Of course, it was not a day-to-day dish as it required a lot of preparation, but most of all, I forgot the recipe or even never acquired it. 

I was thinking of recreating the dish with my own touch -- rather I say re-inventing! 😁 I was thinking of doing it with mutton (goat 🐐  meat 🥩  - not lamb 🐏). Now chicken and mutton are very different types of meat -- formation and nutrient-wise. Chicken meat has more unsaturated fat than mutton, Goat meat mainly contains more minerals (like Zinc and copper) than chicken meat. 

On the other hand, as everyone already knows ---- cooking-wise, chicken is kind of easier to cook because it is a soft meat. However, mutton can be tougher and require longer cooking times if not prepared properly. 

Talking about all this already-known stuff - just to say this - I rethought the dish with mutton and some more citrus fruit along with tangerine 🍊. What can go wrong?

Well, nothing did! It was a birthday party and I decided to do the experiment on the guests 🫢 who are some family friends. Well - they are the persons to judge how it actually was, but to me it was close to what I imagined - hence, sharing this here. Once again, a video was not possible - so sharing it dry - with some photos.

🤌🏽 Ingredients:

• 2KG goat meat 🥩 - hacked into 40 pieces (approximately 50gm a piece)
• 8/10 big onions 🧅 -  "Julian cut"
• 2 TBSP roasted onions
• 2 full garlic 🧄 - whole cloves separated
• 8 green chilies 🌶️ - sliced in the middle vertically
• Garlic pickle
• Sour Yogurt (approximately 200 gms)
• BBQ Sauce
• Tomato Sauce / Salsa
• 1 Tangerine  🍊  (mandarine/clementine, any similar citrous will do)
• 1 Orange 🍊 
• 1 big Lemon 🍋 (yellow one with thick skin)
• 2 Tomatoes 🍅 
• 3 TBSP onion paste
• 2 TBSP ginger paste
• Kabab Spice (I used the "Shaan Shami Kabab" spice pack)
• Cooking oil (to taste and depending on how much gravy there should be - in my case, it was something like 4 TBSP or a little more)
• Turmeric powder 
• Chili powder
• Cinnamon powder
• Cardamon powder
• Salt (to taste)

🤌🏽 Preparation:

• First I poured 1 TBSP of turmeric powder, some salt, 90% of the yogurt, 2 TBSP of BBQ sauce, 1.5 TBSP cooking oil into the meat
• I mixed it properly
• Rested the mix for 1 hour with a plastic sheet covered - in refrigerator.

• After 1 hour, I removed the plastic sheet.
• Then in the cooking pot, I heated some oil (approximately 1 TBSP)
• Then I fried the marinated meat pieces until they change color (red to pale white)
• I made sure all the sides of the pieces were equally fried.
• Then with a tong, I brought out the pieces one by one and put them into the same pot where I marinated them.
• I left the cooking pot in the hob with heat switched on so that all the spices, yougurt, sauces etc. bring out some more flavour.
• After 4/5 minutes, I poured that mix in a separate small pot. I will need them later.

   

🤌🏽 Cooking:

• After cleaning the pot with a kitchen tissue carefully (not removing any goodies 😂), I started the actual cooking. 
• Poured rest of the oil (approx. 1.5 TBSP) into the pot.
• Poured the sliced onions, sliced garlic, sliced chili into that and fried them until the onions are little brown.
• Poured 1TBSP Garlic pickle into the mix and stirred and mixed well, fried a little more
• When the onions are garlic were a little softer and browner, poured the onion and ginger pastes in the mix. 
• After frying a little more, added the roasted onion.
• Then poured the whole pack of the Shaan Shami kabab spice into it.

• After frying the whole mix for some time - until they are mixed properly, added some salt into the mix along with the sauce.
• Then poured around 150ml of water into it, mixed it again and covered the pot with a lid.
• After 8/10 mins (needed to check periodically if the mix was sticked to the pot bottom and if the oil was floating on the top) when the oil was floating on the top of the mix, added the meat and mixed again.
• Added the tomato salsa (sauce will also do - this is to sweeten the gravy a little)
• Added the previously separated marinated exerts into the pot.
• Heat the mix for 5-8 mins more - so that the whole mix fries a little bit more -- this gives a chance for the mixes to go inside the meat and the meat to exert some flavour.

• Then added approximately 150ml of water again.
• Added all the citrous (Lemon and Oranges) pieces.
• Covered the lid for 20 mins, until the mutton is soft and boiled.

• Checked periodically and mixed everything again and again.
• When the meat is boiled and soft - that's when the cooking ends.
• The food is ready.

🤌🏽 Final Result:

However gloomy or dark it looked - it tasted awesome to me 🤓😋 🤌🏽.

Whoever tried it - will be thrilled to know how it tasted.