Kitchro
Kitchro is a heartwarming meat and lentil stew-spicy, hearty broth with succulent pieces of meat. For many Gujis, it's the ultimate comfort food. Kitchro and Haleem are similar South Asian dishes made with slow-cooked wheat, grains, lentils and meat but they differ in texture and ingredients.Kitchro is coarser and chunkier because the meat is left whole and grains are only partially mashed, preserving some texture. In contrast, Haleem is smooth and thick, as the meat and grains are blended or mashed into a paste-like consistency.
Ingredients
The meat curry for 1kg, scale up or down as necessary
- 1 kg mutton or beef medium to large pieces this recipe works best with boned meat, use mutton shoulder or shin of beef
- 3 medium onions, sliced Approx ½ kg
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 medium stick of cinnamon
- 3 green cardamoms
- ½ tsp black pepper pods
- 2 cloves
- 2 bay leaves, I prefer fresh but dry also works
- 1 tbsp garlic paste
- 1 tbsp ginger paste
- 1½ tbsp green chilli paste
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- salt to taste, we use 1½ tsp per kg
- 1½ tbsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- ¾ tsp chilli powder, adjust to taste
- 100 ml sunflower oil or any neutral cooking oil
- water, as required
Kitchro grains mixture, Option 1 (Traditional Kitchro grains mixture)
- 1½ cup haleem mix available in western supermarkets as country soup or broth mix.
- ½ cup pearl barley
- ½ cup rice
Or Kitchro grains mixture, Option 2 (Mrs HF custom Kitchro grains mixture, with extra daal)
- ¾ cup haleem mix available in western supermarkets as country soup or broth mix.
- ½ cup pearl barley
- ½ cup rice
- ¼ cup chana daal/split chickpea lentil
- ¼ cup masoor daal/red split lentils
- ¼ cup toor daal
Herbs and spices for the Kitchro grain mixture
- ¼ tsp garam masala, per cup of daal
- 1½ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp ghee
- ¼ cup mint leaves, finely chopped
- 1 cup coriander leaves, finely chopped
Garnishes
- mint leaves, finely chopped
- coriander leaves, finely chopped
- lemon wedges
- red onion, finely diced
- fried onions
- green chillis, finely sliced
Tarka (optional)
- 2 tbsp ghee
- ½ cup curry leaves and stalks (this have lots of flavour)
- 4 whole green chillies (pierced with knife, this will stop them exploding)when added to the hot ghee)
Instructions
Cooking the base meat curry
- Fry the following dry spices in sunflower oil. The recipe quantities are for 1kg meat, but we made for Eid thus we scaled up.
- Cumin seeds, cinnamon stick, cardamom, bay leaves, black pepper pods and cloves.
- Add in the 3 sliced onions.
- Fry on medium heat, whilst stirring every few minutes.
- The frying of the onions is one of the key elements to getting a great lamb curry, You want the onions to get to a deep caramelisation.
- Add garlic & ginger and green chilli pastes. Fry until the pastes become fragrant.
- Add coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and salt.
- Temper the spices by frying in the oil.
- Add the red meat and stir to combine the masala with the meat. (I was making for 20+ people, however, you can scale the recipe as required).Cook on high for the first few minutes, then cook on medium-low heat, covered until all the water from the meat evaporates.
- Add a little water if you feel that the meat curry is too dry. You want the meat to cook in sufficient braising liquid, but not burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. Check and stir periodically.
- 20 mins into the cook.
- 30 mins into the cook. Its slightly sticking to the bottom of the pan.
- Add water to cover the meat and slowly continue to cook on medium-low heat.
- Tough cuts of meat require slow and low braising.
- It's a long process. The tough collagen in the meat needs to be cooked low and slow until it becomes tender.
- Finally, the meat is cooked.
- Let's see how tender the meat is.
- Braising slowly converts the tough collagen fibres into soft gelatine which results in tender meat. Note; ensure the meat is fully cooked and succulent, as the addition of the pulses will halt its tenderising process.
Pulses, grains and lentils mixture
- As the meat cooks, we can start on the pulses, grains and lentils mixture.
- Mix the following pulses, grains and lentils per kg meatKitchro grains mixture, Option 1 (Traditional Kitchro grains mixture)1½ cup haleem mix, ½ cup pearl barley, ½ cup riceOROr Kitchro grains mixture, Option 2 (Mrs HF custom Kitchro grains mixture, with extra daal)¾ cup haleem mix, ½ cup pearl barley, ½ cup rice with ¼ cup toor daal, ¼ cup masoor daal and ¼ cup chana daal or add a further ¾ cup kitchro mix
- Wash the mixture of pulses, grains and lentils in plenty of water and leave to soak for at least an hour (preferably overnight).
- Replace the water with fresh water, then transfer to a large pot. Bring to a boil on high heat and then simmer for 2 hours. Alternatively, you can use a pressure cooker to reduce the time.
- After an hour of simmering. Add more water if the mixture is sticking to the bottom of the pan.
- After two hours of simmering, the mixture is ready.
- Whilst the daal mixture is still warm, whisk half of the mixture using a hand whisk.Blend the second half of the mixture using a hand blender. This will give the dall mixture a unique textural contrast, which sets it apart from pasty Haleem
- Add the blended and whisked daal mixture to the cooked meat.
- Add 1 tsp salt per cup of unwashed daal (total 1½ tsp salt).
- Add 1 cup chopped coriander and ¼ cup mint to the mixture.
- Reheat the meat and daal mixture. Taste and adjust for salt and chilli. Add water, if required,
- The mixture becomes more liquid as it's heated through,
- If you are adding the optional Tarka move to the next stage, otherwise finish off the dish with ghee and garam masala.
Adding an optional Tarka (Tempering spices in hot oil to finish the dish)
- The next optional stage is to temper the khitchro (highly recommended to add flavour), in a saucepan add 2 tablespoons of ghee and heat up, add the curry leaves and whole green chillies. Be careful as they pop, you can add slits to the chillies to stop this happening. Once the mixture starts to sizzle, add this to the meat and cover immediately. leave the pot to sit for 2 mins.
- Chalo khawa!Serve with hot naan and garnishes
- Enjoy!
- Taste test!