The abused achari gosht

How does one feel when a great piece of art is vandalised? People who appreciate art, heritage and culture find it like somebody defacing the Taj Mahal or a badly sung cover version of a Kishore Kumar song or a real bad interpretation of modern art. I’m driven to a similar point where I experience the same and hence take this as an opportunity to pen down my experience, my version, thoughts and my research on the achari gosht.

Among a variety of dishes that have been abused by many restaurants by way of shortcuts is achari gosht — mutton cooked with pickle spices and not pickled mutton. And at no point the classic Lucknowi or the Hyderabadi achari gosht uses paste of pickle or mustard oil in cooking them.

My friends find it pointless when I fume at some of the most irritating versions of the classic achari gosht, touted as authentic with false stories cooked up by the manager-chef duo. It’s a common mistake by many restaurants to add pickle (mango, mix or any) in a mutton curry and call it achari gosht. And people ordering and eating it don’t mind because that’s the only version most of them have been exposed to. Restaurants find it convenient to cook the mutton curry and do minor alterations to it to increase variety without having to work or invest more. This I find is outright stupidity, a daylight robbery and above all a mockery of our own food.

The problem is (if I can afford to call it a ‘problem’) that great Indian food is still locked away in the homes. The Indian home cooking is the most refined and advanced cooking and that is where the best of Indian cuisine is found rather than in a fancy restaurant. Most of my research and learning that I acquired is by carefully watching and learning from the home cooks. The true version of achari gosht is almost dying with the new breed of chefs not knowing the classic style. There are couple of versions of the dish from different states in India but I was fortunate to get to learn the Lucknowi and the Hyderabadi version. Both of them are completely different from each other in the way they look and the way they are prepared but both have a strong mutton flavour scented with earthy tones of dry achari masala.

Another surprising thing about the two versions is that the Lucknowi is with a thin off-white curry and the Hyderbadi version is completely dry and a bit spicy. Both the versions do not use achar or mustard oil or tomatoes or water in their cooking and yet what comes out is sheer brilliance. That’s like the reward of a magic trick that goes right.

In fact, Lucknowi version of the achari gosht uses raw onions, yogurt, dry panch phoran and green chilies with regular oil or ghee, which means no turmeric, chilli or coriander powder and yet what you get is a very soothing flavour of achar in a robust mutton curry. The Hyderabadi version is almost dry but uses red chilli, coriander and jeera. The meat is cooked in generous oil with dry red chillies and dry panch phoran. Some recipes call for inclusion of little yogurt or lemon juice. This variety is usually served with bajra ki roti.

And next time, you order an achari gosht remember that you are paying for the mutton and not the achar. Chef Kunal Kapur is the executive sous chef at Leela Kempinski, Gurgaon