Narangi Gosht Recipe 

Narangi Gosht was an absolute mystery to me, and Ms Shortcut Sokhina. None of us had ever heard of the dish, half of the time we called it Narandi Gosht. After calling it Narandi Gosht dozens of times, Curious Komola finally pointed out our mistake. God bless the mistake was made only with the name, not while following the recipe. But how ironic of her to point out our mistake in pronunciation. Narangi and Komola both refer to the same thing, orange or tangerine.

So if any of you were unfamiliar with the dish as well, know that it literally translates to meat with orange. And that is exactly what the dish is, a meat curry with orange in it.

The concept of meat curry with fruits in it is outrageous for Bengalis. Yes there are some dishes made with coconuts, that’s the extent as far as I know. And even so, many, like myself, do not prefer the taste of coconut or anything fruity in a spicy curry. So to win my heart, Narangi Gosht had to fight an uphill battle.

Ms Shortcut Sokhina made a creative decision to use chicken meat instead of red meat. Gosht means red meat, so I thought I would be having mutton or beef. But the cook of the day wanted to experiment a little. You can use red meat to make the dish, most recipes of Narangi Gosht online are using red meat. The cooking instructions will be the same. But you would have to adjust for the cooking and marinating time of red meat.

As I said, using fruits in meat curry is foreign to Bengali cuisine. The dish has a Rajasthani origin. Narangi Gosht may be an easy recipe to make, but the dish does not have a humble origin. The dish was first cooked up in the royal palace. The story about the dish goes something like this, the Rajput family had a huge garden of oranges. And the garden produced way more fruit than the royal family needed, just like any monarch’s garden would. But apparently the chef’s wanted to reduce wastage. So they took the ranges and tried making meat curry with it. Luckily for the chef, it has an instant hit with the royal family. And slowly from the family of Royal Family of H.H. Raja Digvijaya Singh of Sailana, the dish came down to the masses. If you like the dish, or even the idea of freshly squeezed oranges on curry, you know which monarch to thank. Unfortunately the name of the chef who actually made the dish was left out by history.

One thing I found while researching the dish is that Narangi Gosht should always be made with fresh oranges. No orange juice or essence can substitute the flavor of freshly squeezed oranges. And where is the fun in using factory prepared oranges in a dish whose whole is around oranges. That would be like replacing a horse with a car; one has a soul, the other one has a loud engine. I know the analogy has nothing to do with cooking, it’s just to emphasize on using natural orange extract.

Now finally before we talk about tasting the dish, I have to shout out the aesthetic of the dish. Oranges open up so many opportunities for photography. And almost every recipe you find online took advantage of it, at least the good ones.

The taste of the dish was a hit or miss. Curious Komola loved the dish with her namesake. Meanwhile Shortcut Sokhina and I were not fans of the dish. So try it out for yourself.