City Food – Julia Child Cooks Mutton Korma in Farash Khana

The great chef’s life in Delhi.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Meet the Julia Child of Farash Khana, a dilapidated neighborhood in Old Delhi. A ‘legal journalist’, Child, 56, has done Master of Arts in English Literature and Sociology. His dream was to be a university lecturer but he couldn’t pursue his PhD since his father, who was suffering from hypertension, died early. Child told The Delhi Walla: “When I write articles and get letters from readers, who appreciate my work, I feel satisfied.” Soft-spoken and very proper, Child addresses his four children – Aliya Abbas, Samna Kulsum, Eman Sakina, Asghar Hussain – with the respectful ‘aap’, instead of the informal ‘tum’. A Shiite Muslim, he says that every religion preaches the same thing – love for all human beings. And yes, Child cooks. Here is the recipe of his ‘mutton korma’:

My mother, Kaniz Zehra, cooked excellent biryani. Now she is 80 and cannot cook. Sometimes I make meals for her. This recipe for mutton korma (for two people) was developed over the years. It is not complicated but I’m grateful to my wife, Annie, without whom I would be dysfunctional in the kitchen.

½ kg mutton (chop, foreleg, shank et cetera), washed and cleaned
250 gm curd
200 gm chopped onions
1 ginger root, peeled and chopped
1 whole garlic, peeled
10-15 black cardamom
8 cardamom cloves
1 small piece of cinnamon
8 black pepper seeds
6 pieces of clove
5 tea spoon coriander powder
1 tea spoon cumin seeds
A little mace
A little nutmeg
Red chilly powder to taste
Salt to taste
½ tea cup vegetable oil
½ cup freshly plucked coriander leaves

Heat the oil in pressure cooker. As it start crackling, add onions. When light brown, transfer them into a mixer. Add garlic, nutmeg, mace and black cardamom into the mixer. Grind thoroughly and keep the paste aside. Add meat into the cooker’s leftover oil and fry. Add the paste after a minute. Fry for five more minutes. Add curd along with the rest of spices. Fry again for five minutes. Add one tea cup of water. Cover the cooker’s lid and let the meat cook for 20 minutes. Open the lid and stir the meat pieces for five minutes. The korma is ready. Garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with rotis or boiled rice.

Julia’s empire

Taste of India

Meat is cleaned

Chop coriander leaves, please

Ginger, Garlic

Fry onions

Wife Annie comes to help

Looks promising?

Throw in the paste

Get ready with the curd

Busy, busy

Throw in spices

Let the meat cook

Waiting

Korma is done, rice is boiled

Mutton Korma is served…

… With roti