Saag Gosht, sort of

After drooling in my keyboard the other morning, I decided we had to try this dish. Since this is my last week with time on my hands, I thought I’d give this recipe a whirl during the week instead of waiting for the weekend.

Let me start by telling you all the things I didn’t/couldn’t do. I didn’t use all of the whole spices this recipe requires simply because I couldn’t track them down in my little town. I substituted with close approximations of dried ingredients. I couldn’t find the exact cut of lamb this recipe indicated and had to buy chops. I only started with 1.63 pounds and I trimmed out the bones so I’m really not sure how much meat I ended up with. I was too lazy to track down the kitchen scale.

I did use whole cloves, a cinnamon stick and peppercorns. I was warned about all the whole spices in this recipe by Deb over at In My Kitchen but I was already pretty sure that we’d have fewer whole spices in our version than she did. She has access to better shops than I do.

Even with all these exceptions, the dish started making us wish time would speed up as soon as I got to the simmer stage of the recipe. The house smelled super.

I made some basmati rice to go with the saag gosht. I soaked the rice and then steamed it until it was soft and fluffy.

The dish was delicious and we’re going to hold onto the recipe and make it again. Next time I’m in a specialty market, I’ll look for some of the whole spices. It will be interesting to see how this dish differs with the addition of whole spices.

Here’s our version of the saag gosht: