If you’d ask me to name one dish to represent my childhood, well, this and a hot plate of daal chawal would have a tough time competing! What is it about this delicious meal that has even the picky eaters lapping it up? Is it the beautifully rich and deeply flavoured broth? The tender chunks of lamb? The soft, pillowy potatoes? There are many different versions to this traditional recipe - my Mother has a complete different recipe to me and I have seen a number of recipes vastly different to mine! Some of my Aunts use yogurt in their masala, but most use tomatoes. Some people keep the shorba (soup) thick, like pasta sauce, or very watery - some don’t have any shorba at all, cooking it like a bhuna curry. What is striking about Aloo Gosht however, is that no matter how the process goes down, it’s the epitome of comfort food. There’s just something about it.
The ultimate Aloo Gosht consistency
I’m extremely sentimental about the shorba in Aloo Gosht (and most shorba curries, actually). It needs to be uncompromisingly smooth - no big chunks of onion floating around, no thick and gloopy shorba, none of that flavourless soup that looks like boiled water. Nope, I’m not having any of it! (Psssst! I have lots of shorba tips on my Aloo Anday post) My Mother taught me shorba curries need to look a certain way - they should be a shade of deep red/brown, the oil coming to the top and separating around the edges, with a distinguished yellowish orange rim. Fear not - the oil floating to the top doesn’t mean this curry is drenched in oil; it just means that the curry was cooked for long enough for the oil to separate from the water of the curry, something that is very important in South Asian cooking. If the oil hadn’t risen to the top of the curry, my Mother would declare the curry a fail without even tasting it.
The two methods of cooking Aloo Gosht
In this post, I’m sharing two different methods to make Aloo Gosht. They both result in the same great flavour, and you can pick whichever method you prefer. Method 1 requires a slow simmer for 2-2.5 hours with the heat barely passing the medium-mark throughout the entire recipe - about 45 minutes slowly simmering the masala, then again simmering for an hour with the meat, then again with the potatoes till they are tender, approximately half an hour. Method 2, which I use more often, requires you to put most of your ingredients in a pot with a some water, then allow it to simmer on low for an hour, before you add in the oil and sauté (bhoon) everything before adding the potatoes in and simmering it again. This method saves time (about 30 minutes in total) and effort. I prefer method 2, however when I first uploaded this recipe in 2015 I only shared method 1, and so I’m keeping it up for those who prefer that version. Both recipes are at the end of this post. Garnish with fresh coriander and serve with your carbohydrate of choice for the ultimate Pakistani comfort food experience. I love my Aloo Gosht with plain white basmati rice, but my husband isn’t fussed and will have it with anything! Enjoy, with love x
📋 Recipe
📋 Recipe
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