Rogan Josh

Rogan josh is an aromatic curried meat dish from Kashmiri cuisine dating to the Mughal Empire. Food historian Lizzie Collingham traces its origin to a Persian preparation the Mughals brought to North India in the sixteenth century, later adapted with local Kashmiri herbs and spices as rulers sought the region's cooler mountain climate in summer. The dish is traditionally made with lamb or mutton braised in a gravy flavored with garlic, ginger and aromatic spices such as clove, bay leaf, cardamom and cinnamon, with its distinctive deep red color coming from the dried root of Alkanna tinctoria or from Kashmiri red chilies, and meat often finished using the slow-cooking dampokhtak technique. Rogan josh holds a central place in the wazwan, the traditional multi-course Kashmiri feast, though Western adaptations that add tomatoes are disputed by traditionalists as inauthentic.