Mutton Paya Curry is a slow-cooked spicy and delicious curry made with lamb trotters served hot with tandoori naan, roti, or rice.
Paya is an Urdu word that means mutton trotter or foot. Paya curry is not something that is included in our daily curries. It is considered as traditional food, cooked especially during festivals and huge gatherings. Special care is taken while cleaning the trotters in order to eliminate any unpleasant smell. A special blend of spices is also added to make the curry extremely flavorful and delicious.
Paya are trotters/ feet of goat or lamb. Soups, stews & curries made from paya are usually consumed in India during winter months. With Persian influences this dish was adapted to what it is known today by Mughlai cooks all over the country primarily in Delhi, Lucknow & Hyderabad. They also believed it to have medicinal properties and are regularly recommended for nutritional purposes.
Mughlai restaurants and small age old cafes serve this dish regularly but depending on where you visit there are quite a few preparations for Paya. A must do if your ever visiting India is to get to these caf� as early as possible. Once it is cooked & served; they are sold out in no time! Traditional paya cooking is a long and slow process, letting the meat cook through; fall off the bone and almost melt in your mouth. Enhancing the flavours further is the gelatinous fat, juicy bones and marrow melting through to form the base for a delicious stock giving a distinct taste and rich meaty gravy to the dish.
Cooking paya is a lot quicker if you have a pressure cooker. The recipe below has been cooked with cooking timings based on using a sauce pan.
The main thing to remember is how you clean it. If it is cooked with the skin, make sure to roast the trotters over a fire to burn off any loose hair (of course do be careful whilst doing this!). If you prefer you can ask your butcher to take the skin off and leave the little meat on with the bone.
Ingredients for Shahi Paya Masala
Steps for Shahi Paya Masala
Shahi Paya Masala
Ingredients
1 kg Goat Trotters
2 tablespoon Ginger paste
3 tablespoon Garlic paste
1 tablespoon Green Chilli paste
1 big Onion sliced
3/4th Cup Curds
3/4th Cup Oil
1 packet Shahi Rivayat Paya Masala
2 litre Water
Some chopped Coriander Leaves and Mint Leaves
Steps
Wash the trotters (paya) thoroughly with water.
Heat 2 litres of water in a huge pan, when the water starts boiling add the washed trotters to the water, add 2 tbsp of garlic paste stir it. Then cover and let it boil for 15 to 20 minutes.
By doing this step the trotters will be cleaned and if there is any smell in it that will be disappeared.
Remove the trotters from the water and keep aside in a bowl.
Heat 2 litres of water in a pressure cooker then add the trotters to it then add 2 tbsp ginger paste, 1 tbsp garlic paste (2 tbsp garlic paste was already added to the trotters before), 1 tbsp green chilli paste, give a good mix and then cover the lid of the pressure cooker and cook on high flame till 1 whistle, then cook on low flame for 20 to 30 minutes till the trotters are soft.
Take 3/4th cup of curd in a bowl beat it, then add 1 packet of rivayat paya masala to it, mix it and keep aside .
Heat 3/4th cup of oil in a huge kadai add 1 Sliced onion ,fry it till Golden in colour on high flame, then add the curd mixture to the onions, reduce the flame to low and fry the masala with the onions thoroughly till oil separates.
After the masala is cooked add the boiled trotters along with the water to this masala, mix it properly and cook on high flame till it comes to a boil for 3 to 4 minutes, then cover and cook on low flame for 10 to 15 minutes so that the flavour of the masala is absorbed by the trotters and delicious goat trotters are ready.
After turning the flame off let it rest for 5 minutes.
To serve garnish with lots of fresh coriander & mint. A rich dish like this needs really soft bread to soak in all the flavours and roomali rotis work perfectly though you can even eat it with Lavash bread (traditional Kashmiri bread) or even chapattis.
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Tips *To clean the trotters soak them in plain flour and water. Place the trotters in a bowl and cover with water. Add few tablespoons of plain flour and let it soak for 5 minutes. * Take a blunt knife and start scraping the surface of the trotters gently. All the impurities will be easily removed. Now discard the flour water and rinse the pieces under running water. *Fill the bowl with clean water and add 1 to 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Soak for 5 minutes and give a final rinse with fresh water. *Slow Cooking will give you best result and flavours.
