Himani's Haleem and the Party that Followed

 Haleem. Its a word that i have always associated with hyderabad. It was the only place that i had ever connected haleem to be made and eaten. This was all until  himani aunty made her delectable haleem. She made it with such ease, like it was the most natural thing to do!

The haleem was cooked over half a day, made easier with farida already frying the onions brown and doing a little bit of the ground work. When we finally got to taste this haleem it was the perfect combination of spice and meat. I have never tasted anything like that before. 

I had made haleem earlier, and it had turned out to be a huge hit. Poo was there too, and she single-handedly was responsible for polishing off VAST quantities of fried onions. Since she had just come back, i decided to make haleem, invite alok over and have a tiny welcoming party(also, its another excuse to cook and feed people :) ).

So heres to Himani Aunty's Haleem.

(The recipe for this has been immortalised in my mail box by her - so in the kitchen, i had all the ingredients for this AND the computer. We all cooked happily together, with the computer overseeing my every move)

I took about a kilo of mutton ( boned is easier, but bones taste better!), about 4 full teaspoons of dhania powder, about 2 tsps of chilli powder, some salt, 1 tsp of garlic paste, 1/2 tsp of ginger paste, full garam masala ( 2 big elachi, 3 small elachi, 3 small cloves, 1 medium stick of cinnamon), a tub of dahi,  4 onions sliced fine and fried (super KEY ingredient) and 200 gms of channa dal and 200 gms of dalia. 

Since i was cooking this straight after work, i thought i would incorporate farida (the cook) to do most of the preparatory work. I soaked the channa and the dalia separately before i left, and kept the masala (a little bit of ginger paste, a little bit of chilli powder, some haldi, and some salt) in a bowl so that she could just mix it in and pressure it. She also fried the onions, which she does really well. 

When i came home, I put some oil (a little more than i thought was necessary - but since there is also dalia and channa it mixes together) in a pressure cooker and added the whole garam masala. When started smelling nice, i added the dhania powder, the chilli powder, the salt and added half a glass of water so that the masala would cook well and wouldnt burn. 

Then i added the meat, and sauteed it along with the masala for 10 mins until all the water had evaporated from the meat ( it takes time, but its the MOST important thing to do. if not, you run the risk of your meat smelling) when that was done, i added 1 cup of water and pressured it for 20 mins.

In the meanwhile i blitzed the fried onions with about 400gms of dahi (to be specific). The colour of the mixture needs to be fairly brown. I learnt the hard way, that if you dont put enough onions into this mixture, the dahi splits when you cook it!

Once the meat in the pressure cooker had cooled, i added the dahi-onion mixture to it and cooked it some more. Then I pressured it again for another 15 mins. By doing this, the meat falls off the bone and becomes really soft. It just makes the next step easier to do!!

Once this had cooled, i deboned the rest of the meat and added the meat and korma to the dalia and channa mixture. 

For the flavour of the meat to really get into the dalia mixture, i put batches of it into the mixie and blitzed it just a little bit. If its done too much, it will become goopy, so you need to be careful here. 

When the entire lot was done, i shut the lid on the pateela and cooked it on a really small flame for the flavours to ( in nigella's words) 'amalgamate' !!

This is garnished with a little bit of hot ghee, cut slivers of ginger, mint leaves, and (to poo's delight) fried onions.

And it was a lovely evening.

Dhawale and Radha. I missed you both!