Calories in Rogan Josh

The recipe is written for one bowl: 100 g of mutton cooked with 50 g of onion, 30 g of tomato, 30 g of curd and 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil. If the mutton is weighed on the bone, less of it is meat, and the bowl will be lighter than the figure. The recipe is also frugal with fat compared with how the dish is usually cooked. Rogan josh is known for the red layer of oil or ghee that floats on a well-made one, and a restaurant bowl normally has much more than a teaspoon and a half. Expect a restaurant portion to come in above 329 kcal.

Fat supplies 58% of the energy, protein 28% and carbohydrate 14%. In a chicken curry a modest amount of oil is the main added fat; here the meat itself is a major contributor, since mutton is a fattier meat than skinless chicken. The 22.6 g of protein comes almost entirely from the 100 g of mutton. Onion, tomato and curd make up the gravy and supply most of the 11.6 g of carbohydrate. That leaves a dish in which the choice of cut matters at least as much as the spoon of oil.

A bowl of rogan josh is about 16% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 20% of a woman's. With rice or roti it makes a full meal, supplying 22.6 g of protein and, as red meat does, some iron. Two bowls come to 658 kcal and 45.2 g of protein, with 42.6 g of fat, which is a lot for one sitting. The usual accompaniments, steamed rice at home or naan in a restaurant, add mostly starch, so a plain vegetable or a salad is the missing piece.

This recipe is sparing with oil, and red-meat curries served in restaurants tend to be both saltier and oilier than this. How much saturated fat a bowl carries depends heavily on the cut of mutton and on whether ghee is used. People with high blood pressure, heart disease, gout or raised cholesterol should take advice from their doctor or dietitian on how often red meat suits them.