Jungli Maas/Gosht is a rajasthani non-veg dish, more than 100 yr old recipe which was prepared while the Rajputs were on wars for days. They could not take too much ingredients with them for cooking so they kept simple spices like coriander seeds, fennel seeds etc . They use to hunt and cook their meat on their way from one place to another.

This particular dish is very simple to make with just few spices (unlike other Indian meat dishes) and is filled with so much flavor and beautiful aroma that makes you feel like royalty.

Let’s jump into the recipe now…

(Serves 6 to 7 people)
Ingredients:
1 kg mutton/any red meat
100 g mustard oil
2 tbsp clarified butter (ghee)
50 g garlic (whole)
4-5 cloves of garlic
50 g whole fennel seed (saunf)
100 g curd
10 g dried red chilies (whole)
1 tbsp red chili powder
1 tbsp turmeric powder
1 tsp sugar
3-4 bay leaves
25 g watermelon/magaj seeds (optional)
Salt to taste

Method:
Lets prep all things before starting the actual cooking. Make paste of the whole garlics. Now keep aside about(need not to be precise) 10 g of fennel seeds. Soak the rest of fennel seeds, dried red chilies and watermelon seeds in different bowls at least for 1 hr. After that grind all of them separately and keep aside.
Put the mutton in a pressure cooker and pour water onto the meat until it’s 1 inch above meat. While pressure cooking we want maximum flavor to enter into the meat. So put 2 bay leaves, 4-5 crushed garlic cloves, crush the fennel seeds which was kept aside, 1/2 tbsp turmeric powder and salt to taste. Mix them well into the water along with the meat and put the lid on.
Give two whistle to make the meat tender. If you feel the meat is not cooked enough you can give one or more whistle accordingly. Once done, keep aside.
We have our meat and all ingredients all prepared so its time for the royal cooking.
Take a large nonstick kadai/cooking pot. Heat the oil and ghee together into the kadai. Put the bay leaves into the oil and saute it for 20 sec. Add the garlic paste and fennel seeds paste together into the oil. Saute them until brown for 10 min keeping the heat medium to low. Now add the red chilli paste, turmeric powder and red chili powder into the sauteed paste and stir. Add the curd and saute well for 10 min. Add salt and sugar to taste and saute again for another 5 min. Notice as the oil starts living the paste and the color of the paste changes. It will be darker in color.
Add the pressure cooked mutton to the paste and stir all the ingredients together. While doing this please make sure the gas is on high. Cook the mutton for another 10 min and keep an eye to the bottom of the kadai. The gravy can dry up quickly and stick to the bottom. While we saute the mutton, heat up the stock left inside the pressure cooker as it is needed to be added into the mutton slowly when the mutton starts sticking to the kadai. Take one cup of the juice and add it to the mutton, keep on stirring for 10 min. Then, put the gas on low flame, add the watermelon seed paste and stir well. The gravy will thicken and color will change to bright reddish orange. The aroma of garlic and fennel will make every foodie hungry.

The best things takes a little time. So the total preparation and cooking time takes near about 1 hr and 20 min. But believe me, it’s worth your time.

Now  put some more of the stock (like 1 cup or so, according to your preference/liking of thickness of the gravy)  into the mutton to make a semi-thick gravy. Put the lid on and cook the meat for 10 min on low flame. Turn off the gas.

Serve with roti, paratha or even hot white rice and feel the royalty.