Kosha Mangsho -- Slow cooked goat curry

I learnt to eat goat meat after my marriage. Before that I was more into chicken, and the few times I had goat I was kind of overpowered by the smell, just as I am overpowered by the smell of lamb now. The first time I cooked goat was at my in-laws’ with help from my mom-in-law. Since my husband is a red meat gorger (he doesn’t consider chicken to be in the non-veg category!) and my in-laws also prefer goat I learnt to cook goat. My aim was to get rid of the smell so that I could eat it too and I found that marinating the meat in all sorts of spices helped. I’ve seen my friends and relatives cook goat meat in either a pressure cooker or a slow cooker. Since I don’t have any (the pressure cooker which I have is too small for the amount of meat I cook) I use my stove top. Works just as well.
Ingredients:
Goat meat – 2 pounds
Ginger paste – 2 tbsp
Garlic paste – 1 1/2 tbsp
Onion sliced – 1 cup
Bay leaf – 2
Cinnamon – half a stick
Cardamom – 2 cloves
Whole black pepper – 1 tsp
Cooking oil – 3-4 tbsp
Salt – to taste
Sugar – 1 tbsp
For the marinade:
Yogurt – 3 tbsp
Cumin powder – 1 tbsp
Coriander powder – 1tbsp
Chili powder – 1/2 -1 tbsp
Turmeric – 1 tbsp
Mustard oil – 2 tbsp
Procedure:
Clean the meat and pat dry. Place meat in a large bowl.

To the meat add all the ingredients under marinade and mix well.

Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 2-3 hours. If you can keep it overnight, even better. The more you let it sit in the marinade the better but not more than 24 hours.

In a heavy bottomed pan put oil and heat it.

When oil is heated enough add the sugar and let it melt until it reaches a dark brown color.

Now throw in the bay leaf, whole black peppers, cinnamon and cardamom. Be careful, the whole peppers will sputter a bit. Stir for a minute or so.

Add garlic paste, ginger paste, and onion to the pan and fry until the mixture takes up a brownish color, approximately 15-20 minutes.

When oil starts coming out from the masala put in the meat and coat evenly with the masala.

Add salt (according to taste), and water so that the meat is just above the water surface.

Put on a lid tightly and let cook on low to medium low for two hours, by which time the meat will be fork tender. Just check once in a while so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
You can add a few drops of rose water if you like.

Garnish with sliced boiled eggs.

Serve hot with steamed rice/ polao/ luchi or paratha.