Mangsho is a superstar of Bengali cuisine. The word itself means meat in Bengali, but it usually refers to a deeply savory, spicy goat curry that has a rich, velvety sauce and is impossibly delicious. A base of ginger, garlic, caramelized onions and spices builds layer upon layer of flavor, and the meat is cooked in this mixture until it becomes meltingly tender.
The most popular style in Kolkata is “khosha,” meaning cooked low and slow with frequent stirring. The sauce ends up thicker and more luxe this way, and it’s a staple at most celebrations. Our family’s version* is possibly the most-requested dish at my parents’ home, and according to the extremely unbiased family members who have made the comparison, it holds its own against the mangsho served in any restaurant in Kolkata. Coincidentally, it’s the only thing my dad really cooks.**
The recipe is my personal white whale. It’s always seemed complicated and time-consuming, with the added challenge of, like any of my family recipes, a complete lack of precise instruction. (“Add a little bit of this and then some this and cook it until it smells right” … 😬)
But after multiple trips home to Delaware last year where I diligently watched/helped/took notes while my parents cooked mangsho (like I said, it’s very popular in our home), I finally mustered up the courage to give this recipe a try on my own. (Apparently, 2019 is the year for conquering cooking challenges.)
Goat is not the easiest to find. My parents go to a Pakistani grocery store in Delaware, but the closest one to me in New York is in Queens, and if you think I’m trekking out to Queens for three pounds of meat, you’re funny. I will only trek to Queens for dumplings. So I went with bone-in lamb pieces, available via Fresh Direct.
To me, lamb has a slightly gamier taste than goat, but since I cooked the meat in the spice mixture for so long, all of that gaminess got masked. Really, the biggest difference ended up being the size of the pieces of meat — my lamb was cut fairly large, so the meat took a long time to get tender. (Usually, we buy baby goat, and the pieces are roughly 2 inches in size.)
Because I was using lamb and was a little concerned about getting the meat as soft as baby goat, I marinated the meat overnight in a mixture of yogurt and turmeric. I’d highly recommend this if you’re going the lamb route — it helped tenderize the meat and get rid of some of that gaminess.
From there, I hewed very closely to my parents’ outline: slowly caramelizing a lot of onions until they’re sweet, building a rich base. Then, a ginger-garlic-onion-tomato paste and a turmeric-cumin-coriander-chili spice blend add even more flavor and heat. Cooking the spices is really important, as it deepens and amplifies them, which is extra-crucial since there are so few of them. (I’ve had plenty of versions with additional spices [and there are a lot of many-spiced versions on the Internet], but I really think simple is best.) The lamb (or goat) cooks low and slow for more than two hours, absorbing all of these flavors and spices until they’ve fully permeated every part of the meat. You’ll want to stir regularly to make sure that the bottom of the pot doesn’t burn, and using a heavy-bottomed pot is key.
While I personally thought this version was fairly close to the original, I ended up carrying some of this back to Delaware to get an expert opinion. The ‘rents agreed, with their only critique being that I should have used more oil and more salt. Feel free to take their suggestions, but know that even without them, this mangsho is pretty dang good.
Next cooking challenge on the docket? Focaccia! Anyone have a go-to recipe?
*To be totally honest, most of the time my parents cook a slightly different style of mangsho — in a pressure cooker, with a more liquidy sauce. The pressure cooker realllllly gets the meat tender (like fall-apart tender), and the less rich style is easier to consume on a semi-regular basis.
*To be fair, my mom does the prep and can make a mean version of this mangsho herself, but my dad is the official “mangsho master” in our home.
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PinIngredients
For the marinade:
- 3 pounds bone-in lamb stew meat (or goat, if you can find it!)
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used 2% Greek, but any will do)
- 1 tablespoon turmeric powder
For the curry:
- 3 large onions — 2-1/2 should be thinly sliced, and half can be roughly chopped
- 4 inches ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1–1/2 Roma tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1 teaspoon cayenne powder
- 2 teaspoons coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt + more to taste
- 2 large Russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3-inch pieces (place them in a bowl and cover with water so that they don’t brown)
Instructions
- Place the lamb in a large bowl and cover with warm water. Let sit for 30 minutes, then pick the pieces out of the water and transfer to another large bowl or Tupperware. Mix the lamb pieces with the yogurt and turmeric, then cover with plastic wrap (or a lid) and marinate for 24 hours.
- Blend the roughly chopped half-onion, ginger, garlic and tomatoes with 1 cup of water until smooth. Set aside.
- In a 6- or 8-quart heavy-bottomed pot with a tight-fitting lid, heat the canola oil on medium heat. Once it starts to shimmer, add the remaining 2-1/2 onions and the sugar. Saute, stirring often, until the onions have softened and started to caramelize — this will take 20-25 minutes.
- Stir in the turmeric, cayenne, coriander and cumin. Cook the spices for 5 minutes, until they’ve darkened and are fragrant.
- Transfer the meat pieces to the pot (don’t dump the bowl in — you don’t want the meat juices that have collected at the bottom of the bowl). Stir until the meat is coated in the spices and onions, then add a teaspoon of salt. Cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, then stir in the ginger-garlic paste.
- Cover and cook, stirring every 15 minutes, making sure to really pick up anything on the bottom (to prevent sticking/burning), for 60-75 minutes, or until the meat is almost tender. You should see the oil from the meat rising to the top, and the water from the meat should have cooked off.
- Uncover the curry and stir in 4 cups of water. Simmer, stirring occasionally. After 15 minutes, add the potatoes. Continue to simmer until the potatoes and meat are tender (this took me another 30 minutes). Add salt to taste. Serve immediately, with rice, parathas or naan.
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