You’re Going to Hear Me Roar : The Experience of Ordering off LionFresh

You could hear the wind howling outside while the grumbling thunder was working itself into a roar. The doorbell rang ominously. Or at least I thought so, until I opened the door to find a slight delivery boy standing outside looking quite pleased with himself. After all he had arrived at my doorstep without needing to call me for directions.

From the thermo-delivery box, he took out three brown paper packages tied up in strings only to put them into a brown paper bag, and then handed it over to me. I was quite gleeful, my meat from LionFresh had finally arrived.

The package was quite cold and the names on the packages indicated what they were and where I needed to put them. I needed to refrigerate the mutton and the chicken while the pork ribs needed to be frozen unless I was going to be using them immediately.

I began tugging on the string, which in hindsight, I should really have just used a pair of scissors to cut. But five minutes of struggling later, I had managed to neatly unravel it and  then put it away for reuse. The brown paper was easier to tear open and what emerged was meat that had been heat sealed into plastic containers. With a label atop specifying the cut and the quantity of meat, you knew you’d received something that was cleverly packed.

I’d ordered the Pork Baby Back Ribs for Rs 650, a Whole Chicken, about 700 grams, for Rs 195,  and Mutton for Curry at Rs 320 for 500 grams. The meat in itself smelt clean. So you could tell it was fresh. It had been washed out and cut carefully, giving you a good fat to meat ratio on the mutton and the pork. No hair, no blood, no extra parts in sight. Which, I bet, is a big relief to those who get a bit squeamish around all that.

The whole chicken was quite small, which surprised me, but in a good way. You see, the smaller the chicken the tastier it is and with a 90 percent chance of not being pumped with hormones. The mutton, cut into curry-sized pieces, had a beautiful marbling and was quite tender to touch, while the pork ribs had plenty of meat on the bones coupled with a smooth and generous finish for the fat.

With the wheels in my head churning, I began thinking of what I could make with all this meat. I decided on experimenting with three  different cuisines. For the mutton, I opted to make a Pakistani Mutton Stew with onions and yogurt. For the pork, I decided to go the American way and dunked into a bottle of Coca Cola to braise and finally finished it with some homemade barbecue sauce. And for the chicken, the Mediterranean way, marinating it in yogurt, garlic and saffron before stuffing it with raisins and homemade preserved lemon and rubbing sumac all over it.

The slow-cooked pork turned out to be delicious. The meat was falling off the bone and there was a definite porky flavor to it. Tender yet rich, this was ample for two people. The chicken tasted quite fabulous, it was juicy on the inside and had a beautiful rich flavor, which was only enhanced by all the goodness, it was also enough for two people for a one pot dinner meal. The mutton, however, wasn’t very different from my local meat shop- Kallu. I felt that the meat took just that much time to cook (read three hours) and tasted pretty much the same. Perhaps if I hadn’t curried it and made a roast, I would have been able to spot the difference.

But all in all, I was very happy. Quick delivery, polite service, neat packaging and fresh meat – full marks to LionFresh.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to recreate my meat dishes, here are the recipes

Pakistani Mutton Stew

Ingredients

500 grams mutton

750 grams onions, sliced

2 tsp ghee

2 tsp fresh ginger garlic paste

6 red chillies whole

2 bay leaves

4 cloves

2 cinnamon sticks

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp red chilli powder

1/3 tsp turmeric

1 cup yogurt

1 + 2 cups water

Salt to taste

Method

1. In a saucepan, heat ghee and add the onions to it. Saute until translucent, about 5-7 minutes.
2. Add all the mutton and sauté until brown and sealed about 5 minutes more.
3. Add in the ginger garlic paste, red chillies, bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, cumin seeds, red chili powder, turmeric and salt and stir fry on high for 1 whole minute.
4. Turn down the heat and add in 1 cup of water. Cook on low flame until the water is dried up, about 45 minutes.
5. Add in the yogurt and turn the heat back up to medium. Stir fry or ‘bhuno’ the meat until the yogurt sticks to it and thickens. This process will take about 20 minutes.
6. Add in the remaining water and turn the heat down to low. Cook for about 1 hour or until the meat falls off the bone. Adjust for seasoning and serve hot with bread of your choice.

Coca Cola BBQ Pork Ribs

Ingredients

For the dry rub

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp paprika powder

1 tsp salt

For the slow cook

500 ml Coca Cola or any non-diet cola of your choice

For the sauce / marinade

200 grams Tomato Ketchup

4 tsp worcestershire sauce

2 tsp tabasco

1 tbsp sugar

3 tsp soya sauce

2 tsp mustard powder

100 ml Coca Cola

Method

1. Mix together all the things for the dry rub. Wash and dry the pork and rub all the dry ingredients onto the ribs and keep aside for 20 minutes.
2. In an ovenproof dish pour all the Cola and then place the pork ribs into it. Bake it at 200 degree centigrade for 2 hours, turning the ribs over once after an hour.
3. Meanwhile place the ingredients of the marinade into a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Turn down the temperature and cook until the sauce thickens. Set it aside.
4. Remove the pork ribs from the oven and discard the leftover juices.
5. Pour one-third of the marinade on top and brush through to the bottom as well. Let it sit in the marinade for 1 hours or unto 24 hours in the refrigerator.
6. When you are ready to finally cook the meat, remove and place into the an ovenproof dish and baste with some of the marinade.
7. Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours at 180 degree centigrade turning it over twice and basting it with more marinade until the meat is tender.
8. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Mediterranean Yogurt, Raisin and Sumac Roast Chicken

Ingredients

For the Marinade

1 cup of yogurt

1/2 cup water

1 tsp salt

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 pinch of saffron

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp sumac

For the stuffing

1 preserved lemon

1 regular lemon

2 cloves of garlic

1 onion sliced

50 grams raisins

For the vegetables

1 potato, thickly sliced

1 onion, thickly sliced

2 tsp raisins

1 preserved lemon chopped.

Final basting

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp honey

1 tsp sumac

Method

1. Mix all the things for the marination into a bowl and then marinate the chicken, breast-side down overnight.
2. Arrange the onions and potatoes into an oven-proof dish. Add in the raisins and the chopped preserved lemons. Pour 1/2 cup of marinade over it and set aside.
3. Stuff the chicken with the said ingredients and truss and tie the chicken.
4. Place it on top of the vegetables. Mix all the things together for the final basting and rub the chicken with it.
5. Bake in a preheated oven for 2 hours, covering the top of the bird for the first one hour. Let it rest for 30 minutes before eating

LionFresh is a high quality meats delivery service, currently delivering smiles at doorsteps across Delhi and Gurgaon. With an aim to provide the highest quality of meat products, they believe in maintaining a hygienic and secure packaging system, using machines handpicked from Australia and Germany. Sourcing their meats from individual farms around the globe, they deliver cold cuts with the warmest of hearts. Hit them up for your next carnivorous crusade here!

#ContestAlert: If you have some ace recipes up your sleeve, here’s  your chance to win A-game meats from LionFresh.

Ruchira Hoon Philip does everything and anything that involves food – cook, write, eat, picture, blog, review, tweet…you get the drift. One of the earliest DSSC members, Ruchira is a key contributor to the rich food landscape of the capital city. She’s been on MasterChef India and now develops menus for restaurants + heads content at a recipe aggregator website.