Hyderabadi marag

A thin mutton soup thickened with cashews and cream rather than flour.

Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

• 1 kg mutton on the bone, in small pieces
• 80 g cashew nuts
• 200 ml plain curd
• 100 ml double cream
• 300 ml whole milk
• 2 onions, sliced
• 3 tablespoons ginger and garlic paste
• 40 g desiccated coconut
• 6 green cardamom pods
• a 5 cm stick of cinnamon
• 8 cloves
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 4 green chillies, slit
• 3 tablespoons ghee
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1.5 litres water

Method

1. IT IS A THIN SOUP, THICKENED WITH CASHEWS AND CREAM RATHER THAN FLOUR, and its article says both halves. On the body: IT IS THIN SOUP. On what goes in it: MUTTON WITH BONE, ONIONS, CASHEW NUTS, CURD, COCONUT POWDER, BOILED MILK, CREAM, GINGER-GARLIC PASTE, SALT, CARDAMOM, CINNAMON, CLOVES, BLACK PEPPER POWDER, GREEN CHILLIES. It allows flour as an alternative -- IN SOME RECIPES, WHITE FLOUR IS USED TO THICKEN THE BROTH TO GIVE IT A MORE CREAMY TEXTURE -- and the nuts are the better route because they add flavour where flour adds only body.
2. THE BONE IS NOT OPTIONAL. Its article specifies MUTTON WITH BONE and then TENDER MUTTON WITH BONE again. A thin soup gets all its depth from what the bones give up, because there is no reduction to concentrate it.
3. SMALL PIECES, AND A LOT OF WATER. A litre and a half to a kilo of meat. This is a starter served in cups at weddings, which its article notes, so it should pour.
4. BROWN THE ONIONS, THEN THE MEAT, THEN THE WHOLE SPICES. Keep the pepper back: ground pepper boiled for an hour goes dull and this soup is built on it.
5. SIMMER IT AN HOUR AND A HALF UNTIL THE MEAT IS LOOSE ON THE BONE. Skim the top twice. A cloudy marag is a marag nobody skimmed.
6. SOAK THE CASHEWS IN THE HOT MILK AND BLEND THEM SMOOTH. Twenty minutes in milk just off the boil, then blended with the coconut to a cream with no grain in it at all. Pushed through a sieve if your blender is honest about its limits.
7. THE DAIRY GOES IN OFF THE BOIL AND THE CURD GOES IN LAST. Cashew milk, then cream, then the curd beaten smooth and stirred in with the pan off the heat. Curd added to a boiling pot splits, and a split marag cannot be brought back.
8. THE PEPPER AND THE GREEN CHILLIES AT THE END, AND SERVE IT HOT IN CUPS. Its article's word for the dish is SPICY and its place is as a starter -- one of the starters at Hyderabadi weddings -- so it should be hot enough to wake the mouth up before the biryani.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes