A Mughlai cookery class

This weekend was our first free weekend together at home since early August, so we took the opportunity to book a cookery lesson yesterday afternoon.  In Mumbai, you can find almost any kind of Indian cuisine in restaurants, but we'd like to be able to take some of these skills and flavours back to the UK with us.

I'd seen a cookery school called Foodwhizz recommended online so decided to give it a go.  Foodwhizz is run by a young Indian woman chef and is based at her family home in Goregaon, in the far northeast of the city.  This turned out to be in  a pleasant bungalow tucked away from the hectic main streets and the perfect location to spend a quiet Saturday afternoon learning about the wonderful spices which come together to make North Indian Moghul cuisine.

There were various cookery classes from which to choose although we decided to go with Mughlai and learn how to make several of the richest dishes from the north of India; those which closest resemble what you might find in a curry house in the UK.

After some tension on the journey to Goregaon, which arose from a difference in opinion regarding the time we should allow for the journey, we did eventually arrive only slightly late and had time to chat to the friendly chef and her sister before the third member of our group joined us  We were presented with our recipes and the four dishes that we would be preparing; Ghosht Roganjosh, Korma, Murg Do Piazza and Murg Makhani.

We moved into the kitchen and spent the next 2.5 hours preparing the food.  I've captured some of the cooking process in pictures below:

 Marinating mutton and chicken in dahi (curd/yogurt) and ginger/garlic paste - 1 hour recommended

Spice grinder - a position of responsibility 

Onions for the korma on the left, pressure cooker for mutton roganjosh on the right. 

Meat goes into the korma.  This is a red korma and not similar to the version with which we are familiar in the UK.

On the boil.  The pressure cooker cooks the meat incredibly quickly (I am not familiar with these pans, but am impressed!) 

 Two curries down, two to go

Chicken marinated in dahi and tandoori spices is browned for the murg makhani (butter chicken) 

Base sauce for the murg dopiazza (meaning onions two-ways).  This one has tomato in it too. 

Beautiful paste for the butter chicken hits the pan. 

Bubbling away. 

Butter chicken and murg dopiazza in progress, both with unique and wonderful aromas.

More cooking 

Butter chicken finished with a swirl of cream, just to add another variety of fat to the dish already including oil, butter and ghee... 

Murg dopiazza and murg korma waiting to be munched. 

Back at home, Sagar casts his eye over our work.  He rated the butter chicken. 

Hungry people ready for dinner

There are few key tips that I have taken away from this:

1)  Marinating meat in yogurt and spices is very important.  This helps to infuse flavour and break down the meat before cooking to make it tender.
2)  Many ground and whole spices are required, and small differences in the quantities used for different dishes can make a huge difference to the end result.
3)  Garlic / ginger paste is ace.  Take equal quantities of garlic and ginger, whizz them together in a blender, and add lots to everything.
4)  In Mughlai cooking, it is all about the oil.  At each stage of cooking, the technique seemed to be the turn up the heat until you could see the oil bubbling on the surface of the mixture, then move on to the next step.  Nice.
5)  Meat is often used on the bone to impart more flavour.  Phil is not too keen on this, but it did taste pretty good at the end of it!
6)  Hot oil (vegetable, groundnut, mustard....but NOT olive) is crucial and caramelising onions to a dark brown stage is very important.
7)  Pressure cookers are quite wonderful inventions (if a bit scary for my liking).
8)  Jeera rice is a rather wonderful accompaniment.  I will be cooking rice with cumin seeds in the future.

Let me know if you would like the recipes!