Rajasthani goat curry stripped back to its essentials: ghee, garlic, whole Kashmiri red chillies and water. The meat takes the heat slowly and the gravy stays thin, oily and red, finished under a lid with a piece of hot charcoal for the optional smoky note. Hunter's food, royal kitchen technique.

Junglee maas (literally jungle meat) is the desert hunting-camp dish of Rajasthan, traditionally prepared by hunters in the field with whatever they had on hand: the day's catch (typically wild boar or game venison, modernised to goat or lamb in restaurant kitchens), ghee, salt, whole dried chillies, and water. The minimalism is the point; no onion, no tomato, no garam masala, no fancy aromatics.

The Rajasthani princely-state cooking tradition (the Rajput courts at Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur) adopted the hunting dish and refined it for the royal kitchens, codifying it into the formal version that survives today on a few menus in Rajasthan. The Mathania chilli (the indigenous Rajasthani red chilli, grown specifically around the village of Mathania near Jodhpur) is the proper variety; Kashmiri chillies are the closest available substitute.

The dhungar technique (smoking with a piece of hot charcoal under a sealed lid) is the optional final flourish that adds the campfire note. Heat a piece of natural lump charcoal over a flame until red-hot, place in a small steel bowl inside the curry pot, drizzle a teaspoon of ghee over the charcoal (it smokes immediately), clamp the lid shut for five minutes. The smoke perfumes the meat. Serve with bajra roti (millet flatbread) or steamed basmati. A desert plate, in your kitchen.