Ahuna Mutton

Ahuna Mutton is a traditional one-pot spicy mutton curry with its roots tracing back to the Champaran district of the north west state of Bihar. Champaran is famed for Mahatma Gandhi’s launch of the Satyagraha Movement in 1917 against the British Raj in India. Thus, Ahuna Mutton is also called the Champaran Ahuna Mutton. Another name for it is Handi Mutton or Batloi (mutton cooked in a bell metal pot).

The Ahuna Mutton started as a celebratory dish during the festival of Ahuna, observed to invoke the spirits of good fortune post the harvest season, and also to welcome the new year. It was essentially an agrarian festival where the farm workers and labourers mixed all spices in mustard oil with the mutton and slowly cooked it on the wood fire embers in a sealed clay pot. It started as a poor man’s fare, which did not become popular and remained restricted to the district till mass migration of labourers resulted in popularising the dish. The Ahuna Mutton is popular for its unique flavour and gusty taste that soon found its way in the gourmet list of the wealthy.

In recent times, the dish's fame can be attributed to Gopal Kumar Kushwaha, who left his job and pursued his love for cooking. He opened the first shop called Old Champaran Meat House in Patna. He traced the dish to a small village called Ghorashan, about 30 kilometres from the district headquarters Motihari, on the Bihar-Nepal border.

The fame of the spicy Ahuna Mutton is largely owing to the meat's quality. The goat is fed with herbs and allowed to graze on grass. The mutton is tender and full of nutrients. The tangy mustard oil is an essential ingredient, which adds pungency to the dish. Use of the whole garlic bulb, slowly cooked in the oil and spices, gives the gravy a sweet flavoured undertone. It also cuts the bad fat element from the mutton. The marinade is a mix of the onion-garlic-ginger paste with spices like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, garam masala paste, red chilli and turmeric powder and bay leaf. This is then mixed well by hand in a healthy quantity of mustard oil. The mix is then put into a round clay pot. Some more mustard oil, salt and ghee is added with whole spices consisting of cardamom, clove and cinnamon.The entire mix is given a toss to enable the oil and marinade to marry well. One or two whole garlic bulbs are added and the pot is sealed with wheat dough around the lid. The cooking time is generally an hour, depending on the quality of meat. The pot is set on the embers of charcoal fire to enable the meat to cook in 'dum', which helps it to absorb all the flavours of the spices. During this period, the pot is shaken six or seven times to toss the entire contents inside.

When finally opened, the robust succulent mutton chunks in the spicy gravy give an aroma of disparate flavours. The poor man’s meat today has found its way to the tables of gourmet restaurants and dining rooms of the rich, so much so that it has featured in the guest menu at Raisina Hills while entertaining international and domestic VIP guests (a symbol of recognition for the dish).