Under Pressure

After thinking about it for twenty-seven years, Martin finally bought a pressure cooker last week, and while it’s going to take a bit of practice for him to master it completely, first impressions are brilliant. He made a cassoulet-style dish of cannellini beans with Toulouse sausages (and some other dark cooking sausage from the French market, the name of which he’s forgotten), and while it wasn’t a classic, it was pretty good, and took about 17 minutes instead of two days. He used the pressure cooker to sterilise a couple of jars for chutney (apple chutney, not Chutney my sister). Then at the weekend he accidentally bought mutton instead of lamb at the Asian butchers, and even then the curry he made was ready in three-quarters of an hour. Nice recipe, too, called Badami Gosht (which would translate as “Almonds and Meat”). It came in a booklet with the cooker (a rather stylish Prestige 4.25 litre "curry pan" with a rounded base for easier initial shallow-frying of onions and so on, as in the photograph):

For 600g mutton, off the bone and cut into large dice, fry a chopped onion in the bottom of the pressure cooker with six cardamoms, a cinnamon stick and six cloves. After a minute or so add a couple of garlic cloves and a thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and chopped fine. Add the meat and fry for a couple of minutes, stirring, until browned. While this is underway, steep a big pinch of saffron threads in a tbs of boiling water and add, together with a tsp or more of chilli powder, to three tbs of (preferably Greek) yoghurt, and beat. Separately grind 50g of almonds and mix with enough cold water to make a paste. Add the yoghurt and almond mixes to the pot (Greek yoghurt doesn’t split in the heat; if you use the thin stuff you’ll have to cool the meat first) and cook for a few minutes, then add half a pint of coconut milk. Simmer with the lid off for 15 minutes, then put the lid on the cooker, bring to full pressure, reduce heat to minimum and leave to simmer for a further 15. Release the pressure and scatter with coriander leaves (and chopped fresh chillies if you want some more heat). Serve with a vegetable dish or two, and home-made chapattis, or whatever flat bread you can manage.

This was exceptionally rich and fragrant, with the cooking method seeming to concentrate the wonderful flavours of saffron and almonds while producing tender, moist meat. It would work really well with goat, though that isn’t very easy to find in Glasgow, unfortunately.