Recipe: Traditional Pakistani meat stew with potatoes - "Aloo Gosht Salan"

When you think "all-American", its usually quite easy to imagine the traditional meat loving individual. And while I look of Asian descent upon appearance (specifically Pakistani), I love a good juicy beef burger just as much as my fairer skinned Americans. I also enjoy my pizzas topped with the best meat lover's variety (100% beef, halal of course) and I can never turn down a hot dog smothered in mustard and ketchup! So, for the longest time I thought myself to be the average big beef loving American. Because, even at home when my mom cooked Pakistani meals, I always preferred the red meat dishes over the chicken ones. 

Here's where my Pakistani brethren can chime in and agree that Nihari, Haleem and Biryani all taste quite better in their non chicken form (I know many of you do prefer chicken over red meat, I'm choosing to ignore you)! But it wasn't until I actually started cooking on my own that I discovered something of a surprise. 

While I prefer beef in American dishes, when it comes to Pakistani food its GOAT I like! Yes you read that right, BLEH. Goat?! I was so weirded out when I first learned that it was goat meat my mother had been feeding us for years, and even more betrayed because I love the taste of it SO much! 

Some people confuse mutton with goat meat, but mutton is actually from a lamb. I'm not a major fan of lamb as it tends to be greasier with all the added fat. Goat, on the other hand is very tender, flavorful yet light on the fat compared to its beef/mutton red meat counterparts. 

One of my faaaaaavorite Pakistani dish of all time is a classic meat and potato stew translating in Urdu as: Aloo Gosht Salan. 

It is pretty easy to cook too if you have a pressure cooker. I  admit, I was pretty afraid to use a pressure cooker for the first time after having childhood memories of this scary loud whistle that went off every few minutes on the one my mom cooked with when we were kids. Plus, scary stories of them bursting and destroying kitchens did not help. But, thankfully in my own experience of owning one for 5 years I haven't had any problems at all, new cookers have a less horrific sound and it honestly cuts your cooking time in half. As long as you read the manual that comes with it, most of the current models are fairly safe. I bought mine from Macy's and use it for all my meat cooking recipes, especially when I was working it made dinner prep MUCH easier. 

If you want to cook Pakistani food, get used to chopping onions. Nearly all dishes have onions as  a staple.

Brown the onions in a tablespoon (or two) of oil. This is what gives your stew its base flavor.

All the spices you should need: Salt, Pepper, Cumin powder, turmeric, red pepper, coriander powder and oil (I use grapeseed for all my cooking. Love it! No aftertaste and it cooks just like veg or canola oil)

Once onions are browned, add garlic/ginger paste then meat and potatoes + spices+ chopped tomatoes 2 cups water and you're ready to pressurize!

lock that lid on then find an activity to occupy you for the next 15-20 minutes. Come back to Dinner Ready!

boil some white rice (make sure to add salt and some oil) on the side and enjoy your Aloo Gosht!

Ingredients (makes about 4 servings): 

• 1 lb goat pieces, washed and drained (ask the butcher for hind leg thigh meat, or just say its for stew)
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1.5 tbsp garlic ginger paste (some people make their own from fresh garlic and ginger, I'm lazy and buy the Shan brand ready made jar, apparently fresh taste better)
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1/2 cup fresh coriander/cilantro leaves finely chopped
• 1/3 cup of oil

Spices :

• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp red chili powder (adjust per taste)
• 1 tsp salt or as preferred
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• ** my secret ingredient: 1 tsp of Shan Korma masala (adds a great aroma and gives the stew a more 'formal' flavor if that makes any sense)

Preparation :

• Heat up oil in the pressure cooker
• Add onions and let them get to a golden brown color 
• Add meat, tomatoes, ginger/garlic paste, and all the spices, stir fry the meat until all ingredients are well combined. Make sure to stir frequently to allow a gravy to form, this in Urdu is called “bhoon-na” which basically means that all the onions, garlic,ginger and tomatoes have been fully combined. Your meat will not be fully tender at this point, it will cook when you pressurize. 
• Add 2 glasses of water and allow it to come to a boil, add the peeled potatoes then secure on the pressure cooker lid and let it cook. (depending on your cooker directions, meat usually takes 15-20 minutes) You can tell when its done as the meat comes off the bone easily.
• Add chopped coriander/cilantro leaves and mix well.
• Serve with chappati or a plate of plain basmati rice.

*Some people do the bhoona step AFTER they cook meat/onions in the pressure cooker with water. I do it first but either way it shouldn't make a difference.

**potatoes tend to cook faster than meat, so if you let them cook for just as long as the meat they may overcook and turn mushy but in my experience large baking potatoes take very long so use those!  Another trick that helps is to cut large pieces, so they'll take longer to cook. 

From the desk of a Chronic Pessimist

About 10 years ago my grandfather wrote an Urdu book called 'Fikharein Choro Jeena Seekho' it was a translation of Dale Carnegie's best seller 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living'. I was very young when he wrote it but I remember we had numerous women who would call or send letters from Pakistan seeking Dada’s advice on an unending list of things they worried about. In my opinion, Dada wasn’t a self-help guru, but he hit the nail on the head with this book. Just the title is enough to show that it’s probably the best advice anyone will give you about life. Sadly, I never even attempted to read the book myself! Lately though a lot of things going on have had me thinking about this concept. This "worry wart pessimistic" attitude which seems to be more prevalent in us women was blaring in my face everywhere I went. Especially after watching Kashaf’s behavior (female protagonist of the current Pakistani TV show I’m hooked on, Zindagi Gulzar Hai) I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to dish out some advice to the current generation, just like my Dada once did.


Girls, can we please admit to this ‘flaw’ of ours and work on fixing it?! Please?

We worry beyond belief! This issue of stressing about every possible scenario that might play out in our lives literally drives us to the brink of insanity. I know we really can’t help it, its innate. But you know what? We give men a lot of grief about being lazy and irresponsible, so maybe we should take our own advice and fix our quirks when they become a problem. Perfect example: Kashaf is a manic worrier, this girl couldn’t recognize happiness if it punched her in the eye, because she’s perpetually afraid of what can go wrong next. She is doubtful of anyone who is nice to her and of any possible hope of good times in life. Watching her I thought, wow who can be THAT negative? But it took a few seconds to realize I do this ALL the time! Last week, I read in the news about a young mom dying in her apartment and her four year old son walked around alone for days surviving only on a bag of sugar. Suddenly, I’m crying. AT WORK. Because the little boy’s story was so sad I started worrying about what if I die and no one finds out. I imagined Ali locked in with my corpse, eating nothing but fistfuls of Nutella. SERIOUSLY? Get it together girl. Yes bad things happen. Yes they do happen to good people. But GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TOO. We cannot not allow fear of these ‘what ifs’ to consume us.

We need to take off the green lens and actively seek the good in our lives. It may be exams and 8 page papers in college life or endless hours at work or a baby who doesn’t sleep at night that cause us to worry and become Negative Nancys. But the truth is WE allow it, life experiences may be triggers but we are the ones who choose to pull it and shoot out that bullet.

While Kashaf on ZGH is an extreme example of it, we all have this inner pessimist that we sometimes let get the best of us and it only wreaks havoc when we do. Think about at least two things you obsessed/worried about in the past week, month or year that turned out “not so bad” after all. Yes it wasn’t entirely how you expected but it wasn’t as terrible as you worried it would be. And maybe, possibly, some of your worrying negatively affected the outcome, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. By stressing too much we actually cause the things we fear to come true. When I first got married I had this constant dream of my husband dying! Once I woke up bawling from a dream that he went out jogging, was got hit by a car and my parents are telling me he’s dead. It took me a long time to figure this out, but I realized it was my fear of a good thing. I had never loved someone so much and was majorly afraid of losing the best thing to ever happen to me. I had to come to terms with the fact that this amazing occurrence in my life was actually here, and  I wasn’t allowing myself to love him wholeheartedly for fear of losing him.

I’m trying SO hard to fix this worrier side of me, and it may be working. Like last month when we spontaneously decided to do a trip to Turkey planned in 2 days I did not panic. I just got to work on what needed to be done. And even if we dashed to the passport office a few hours before our flight, it all worked out. IT ALL WORKED OUT. As women we are planners and organizers with a big part of our nature is to be a perfectionist, wanting every detail to be flawless. In doing so, we begin equating planning with stressing. If we aren’t stressed we don’t care enough. This attitude has got to change. I care very much about everything in my life and a huge part of me does want to panic at times, but I am making a constant conscious effort to remind myself that freaking out will not help. Worrying won’t make it perfect and ‘perfect’ will only happen when I accept that there will be flaws.


Learn to let things go when they go wrong. Work your absolute hardest and when you find yourself freaking out, stop. Take a moment to breath and tell yourself:

Have hope. Know that this too will be over eventually, so while it’s happening you must enjoy the best of it and let go of the worst of it.

So now with all that being said, can someone please shake Kashaf ‘Churail’ Murtazas’s shoulders, slap her across the face and say "GIRLFRIEND YOUR HUSBAND IS HOT AND HE LOVES YOU, STOP WORRYING ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG AND FREAKING HUG HIM ALREADY!"
 
Images via Tumblr 



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Who am I?

I have been suggested by many friends that I should blog about how I juggle everything in life between working, parenting, hosting and so much more.

Thank you, kind friends, for acknowledging that life is tough and the roles we take on with age are tougher. I truly appreciate moments where you say things like ‘I don’t know how you do it, I come home from sitting at work all day and I’m too pooped from just that. How you have the energy to cook up all those things you post on Instagram?!’ 

As enthralling as hearing about my life might be, I think most of the stuff I go through is really no different from so many of my friends also experience. We all can relate to many of the same moments in life, so I’m really hoping you all nod and agree that you share likeness of me in any of the below situations (so I don’t feel like a complete moron). 

Here in no particular order is my attempt at laughing at life.

You know you’re an American born working Muslim-Pakistani mom/wife/daughter/sister when:

-       Your child’s teacher chuckles when you groan as she gives you the note Jilly’s mom for you. Because you both know it’s yet another birthday party invite. Another event where your kid comes home with too much sugar for his pint sized body to handle. Another event for which you have to go buy a gift and a card and a gift bag. No you aren’t lazy (much), and you probably should hoard these things in bulk like all those crafty moms do, but having a full time job means no time to remember those time saving moves. (You have no time to save time, the humor is not lost on you)

-       The moment when your mom gushed compliments over your goat biryani and the look of pride on her face is forever etched in your mind. Your mom doesn’t do false compliments, this is huge and it probably ranks up higher than getting your Masters/CPA as ‘Moments I’ll never forget’.

-       You fall asleep on the couch after 2 episodes of Game of Thrones, only to be awaken at 1:30am when your 2 yr old is crying in the bedroom. And you realize you forgot to pray Isha namaaz and really mean to do it now but fall back asleep after putting your child to bed. You totally promise God you won’t do it again, yet you have so many Isha prayers to make up even God ain’t falling for it anymore.

-       Some days your child eats nutella on toast for dinner. It’s better than food being forced in while you try to pry his mouth open. Mostly you manage to squeeze in somewhat of a healthy meal, but some days Nutella toast wins the battle.

-       You ponder over your chances at becoming a fashion blogging success. These hijab fashionistas seem to really have found their niche, too bad you don’t wear a scarf and probably wearing one just to blog about it isn’t such a great reason to start. And also, you will probably never pose regularly for pictures in pretty outfits, because even if you do somehow find the time your son will most likely also be pictured tugging at your pants in every pose.

-       You think a freshly cooked meal two times a week is pretty commendable and if you manage to find time in your weekend packed with birthdays/bridal showers/weddings/baby showers/couple’s get together/girl’s night to cook a meal ahead of time it’s definitely worth bragging about.

-       Either you or your husband (or both) are serious addicts to websites like slickdeals, and due to this your once fairly large apartment/home is now filled with tons of unnecessary merchandise.

-       You show up to work wearing one earring, because your child woke up crying before you got to the second one and due to Mommy brain you plum forgot you had just one in!

-       Your child watches Sim Sim Humara (Pakistani Sesame Street) so he can learn some culture and it warms your heart to hear him shout words like ‘Himmat’ and “Yakeeeeeen’ even though he probably has no idea what they mean yet.

-       When your 2 year old son says ‘bless you’ upon hearing you sneeze and you’re not sure to be happy that he’s learning manners at daycare or ashamed that you’re not doing a good enough job at home on emphasizing ‘Alhumdulillah’. Which then leads you to yet again fall into depression/guilt that he spends 10 hours at daycare and only 2 hours at home with you so of course he’ll learn ‘Bless you’ before he learns ‘Alhumdulillah’. And all of this just ends up in more chocolate being eaten. (this time by you)

-       Your sister and you promise each other that you won’t baby your 30+ year old son like your mother in law does your husband. Both of you swear to never end up this way unconsciously knowing you probably will.

-       You would be better off buying stock in your local gym instead of having a membership, because at least that way your monthly contributions would give you some form of long-term profit. I’m a proud member of WoW since Dec 2009, now don’t ask me how many times I’ve been in the past year. I tend to take 2-3 month long vacations from exercise. 

-       You fervently worked out to Youtube videos of Zumba routines the day you finally accepted you will not be going to the gym any time soon. That was the last time Youtube was used in your home for anything other than Sim Sim Humara or ABC Phonics.

-       Getting out of the car and into the house without toppling over is a mini feat, because you managed to carry: your child (who is usually trying to run free), purse, lunch bag, child’s school bag, numerous artworks/toys, and sometimes groceries all in your two tiny hands while climbed up 12 steps sometimes in snow, ice and rain whilst having to go pee so badly. Mini Feat indeed. (I suppose you could probably make two trips, but do you really trust your toddler alone in the house? Man that’s one good toddler, can we switch? Also, this saves time, you really just don’t want to go back out in the cold dammit)

-       You spend quite a bit of time on websites like Realtor.com waiting for the day your husband gets over his ‘I don’t want to pay interest’ phase so you can call a lovely ‘4 bedroom 2.5 bath’ home. You don’t want to pay interest either, but dreaming of being homeowners is so lovely. And you both know this phase is more about your husband’s excuse to be the cheap Desi he is at heart.

-       You are quite thrilled to have a ‘wellness room’ (real purpose is for breast pumping mothers to use) in the office so you can make wudu and pray namaz at work without your coworkers having to know or deal with that awkward moment in the bathroom when someone walks in to see you washing your hands til your elbows.

-       Seeing the only other Muslim coworker walk out of the wellness room around Maghrib time and realizing he was probably using it for the same reason as you (I sure hope he isn’t breast pumping in there!) makes you super proud that handsome single moderate Muslim boys do exist! You immediately start plotting schemes on how to introduce yourself and eventually get him to marry one of your single friends.

-       Even though you try not to be vain and judge people solely based on looks you follow Faryal Makhdoom on Instagram. Let’s be honest she’s a pretty girl of Pakistani descent and famous by association, that’s reason enough to follow her. She may end up having her own reality show one day and then you can say you liked her before the rest of the world did. Jay Sean style.

-       You’ve got the best Worst Mom Incident out of all your friends. It involves dinner with a couple you never met before, a baby bag forgotten at home, a wailing child stuck in a high chair with you then your husband struggling to get him out, numerous restaurant diners staring, and the story ends with your child going home wearing a receiving blanket wrapped like a sumo wrestler’s underwear. And the couple still wants to be your friend. Yay for Happy endings!

-       The advent of Pinterest has caused you and your husband to gain some serious weight in the past two years because you can’t stop pinning all these amazing recipes! 

-       Despite stockpiling spare Paci/Binky’s, you feel like you spend half your life searching for lost ones. God damn the day you decided to hook your child onto this creation.

-       Sometimes you look around at your living room/kitchen/bathroom/bedroom and secretly thank God that your mom can’t see what a slob you have turned into. You’ve contemplated a cleaning/cooking schedule (pinned some cute ideas on Pinterest too!) but only wonder how long people actually stick to those.

-       You see an adorable newborn/infant girl and make a mental note to keep her in mind as a future daughter in law one day. Yes it’s totally disturbing since your son is not even potty trained, but hey finding love is hard and you just want to help your little sweet pea out!

-       You have a whole slew of fasting days missed during your pregnancy that two years later you still are making up. And sadly your reasoning for not doing make ups during December (when the days were shortest and the fasts were easiest) was that the office had too much free food and holiday parties you didn’t want to miss. Clearly your priorities of putting food before everything else have got to change. (She says while eating a midafternoon snack)

I think I’ll stop now, not because I don’t have more delightful anecdotes to share with you, but because I’m afraid you probably think I’m the laziest, weirdest, most unorganized, disheveled mother/employee/wife/everything else. I promise I do have some great accomplishments and strong attributes too. When I’m not totally exhausted from all the things I’m involved in, I can be quite a pleasant person to be around (hah!). Mostly, I am thankful for my life, albeit it is not always perfect. Sometimes life hands me a challenge and sometimes I just make senseless mistakes, but mostly I’ve learned that if I can walk away from an experience and laugh about it, it’s been a good life.

So I’m trying hard to smile with each struggle and be thankful for the times that we get a full night’s rest to tackle the next hurdle!

Eating Skinny!

So I stumbled up on this article and it got me thinking:

Practically everything on this list are things my Desi mother has been unconsciously feeding us for years. Remind me to thank her for the amazing metabolism I had for most of my life. I say that because lately I find my metabolism majorly slummed and it’s probably because I’ve taken out all the great stuff from my diet that I used to eat before. The more I think about it the more I realize that this may be the secret why I never saw my mother/grandmother ever doing all the crazy diets or intense exercise routines most American women succumb to in order to control their appetites. Even reflecting on myself, as a teenager while I was still eating mom’s home cooked desi meals I wasn’t thin but I was able to maintain a healthy normal weight without much struggle at all. And the moment I added in a mix of exercise into my routine I was able to drop weight quickly. Nowadays it’s like I breathe air and I’ve gaining 10 pounds!

Desi women are not skinny by nature; we have wide hips and curvy midsections. It’s just who we are. Butttt I wouldn’t call Desi women obese. The main things I see women of south Asian descent have is good self-control when it comes to food and a pretty good metabolism. I’m not talking about us Desis who grew up here and been subjected to tons of junk food loaded with sugars and carbs. I’m talking about the real home grown edition of Desi, like our moms and grandmas. I know I have AWFUL self-control when it comes to delicious food. Pizza, mashed potatoes, lasagna, and chocolate cake I can’t remember the last time when I said ‘oh I’ll just have 1 helping thank you’. But true Desi women who grew up eating wholesome home cooking just ate less and that was their unconscious effortless portion control/ weight loss regime.

So according to the article, these are the ingredients I need to bring back onto my plate:

Chili peppers – The first thing you think of when you hear the words Indian/Pakistani food is spicy. Ultimately, you aren’t a Desi if you can’t handle the heat. And it was only when I grew up and read up on it that I found out that the spicy taste does wonders for your metabolism! Yay spicy food! :)

Pine nuts- As a kid I remember my Ammi and Dadi roasting up chilgozay (pine nuts) to snack on in the winter. Meanwhile, in the summer time my mom would dry out the seeds of all sorts of fruits for us to munch on. I specifically remember cantaloupe seeds but I know pumpkin and sunflower seeds were definitely something we ate while pretty much oblivious to the massive amounts of nutrients they are loaded with. Something all women are known to do is eat out of bored, but Desi women hit it on target by nibbling on something that would suppress appetite in addition to decrease their fat stores!

Cinnamon sticks- I never knew it until I started cooking myself, but cinnamon is common a spice used in most curries. I put whole sticks of it in my Pulao to add aroma, but if you ever cook curries with garam masala it’s one of the main ingredients in it. Who knew it’s a metabolism booster?

Red Lentils – Every Desi child knows what daal is, masoor ki daal to be specific. And, whether you liked it or not you definitely ate it a few times a month if not weekly. I personally LOVE daal with kaali and khutti daal being among my favorites; plus it’s honestly one of the easiest meals to prepare. The added bonus, all the protein and good fiber in lentils is great at keeping you full for longer.

Fennal tea- I drank gallons of it post-delivery as my mom insisted it will help sooth my breastfed son’s digestion and mean less gas for him from all the things I eat. Little did we both know that it actually helped me lose a ton of my baby weight! Too bad I stopped drinking it as soon as I stopped breastfeeding; I need to get back on this stat! (buy some fennel boil it in water, tea doesn't get much simpler than that!)

Overall- After a long and tiring day at school/work, while it’s easy to pick up food at the drive thru or cook 2-minute ramen noodles (loaded with sodium and preservatives that only cause you to bloat!), small efforts like cooking up some daal and adding in a dash of ‘lal mirch’ will do your body good..


**There are a bunch of other items this article mentioned that I personally do love eating (apples, watermelon, raspberries, avocados), but they aren't very 'Desi' so I'll just mention them here and encourage everyone to add them into your diet!

(photos courtesy of Google Images)