Pakistani food

How to cook… Karahi Paneer

Recipes

Serves 4 as a main dish

Named after the pot in which it is cooked Karahi Paneer is also known as Kadhai Paneer. The wide, deep circular pot is popular for cooking all over the sub-continent but especially North India and Pakistan. A karahi masala is made by dry roasting and grinding whole, aromatic spices then adding it to a tomato and onion gravy with red peppers and cream.

What you need…
• 500g paneer, cut into chunks
• 3 Tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic paste
• 0.5 teaspoon ginger paste
• 500g Base Curry Sauce
• 0.5 red pepper, cut into chunks
• 0.5 teaspoon garam masala
• 3 Tablespoons cream
• 2 Tablespoons chopped coriander (to be added and mixed into the curry, but keep a couple for the garnish)
• salt to taste

Masala
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 0.5 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 0.5 fenugreek seeds
• 4 red, dried chillies
• 2 cardomons
• 2 cloves

How to make it…
1. Heat a pan and dry roast the ingredients for the masala until they release an aroma (about 2 minutes). Grind the ingredients and set aside.
2. Heat 1 Tablespoon ghee in pan to a low-medium heat. Add the paneer cubes and fry until they brown. This should take about 3–4 minute. Remove from the pan and set aside.
3. Heat the rest of the oil in the pan to a medium heat, add the garlic and ginger and cook for 1 minute.
4. Add the Base Curry Sauce and cook for 2 minutes.
5. Add the masala, mix well and cook for 3 minutes.
6. Add the pepper and cook for 3 minutes.
7. Add the garam masala, mix well, then add the cream, coriander and salt and cook for 3 minutes.
8. Garnish with a few coriander leaves and serve.

CHEF’S TIP
For the authentic experience cook and serve your curry in the same karahi.

If you like this you should try our…
Sag Paneer • Chilli Paneer • Butter Chicken • Butter Paneer • Prawn Korma • Medium Chicken Curry • Chicken Madras • Chicken Vindaloo • Chicken Bhoona • Chicken Dopiaza

What is paneer’s favourite song? … I Did It My Way.

How to cook… Pakistani Fish Curry

Recipes

Serves 4 as a main dish

Pakistani Fish Curry, also called Sindhi Fish Curry, is made by marinating pieces of white fish in yoghurt with garlic and spices. Whole spices are then fried, then onion, tomato and chillies added before the fish pieces are cooked. The dish is a popular winter dish and is traditionally cooked using pomfret, but you can use any firm, white fish.

What you need…
• 2 Tablespoons oil
• 700g firm white fish, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1.5 medium onions, finely chopped
• 4 chillies, chopped
• coriander leaves, for garnish

For the marinade
• 100g yoghurt
• 1 teaspoon garlic paste
• 1 teaspoon ginger paste
• 0.5 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 0.5 teaspoon coriander powder
• 0.5 teaspoon chilli powder
• 0.5 teaspoon salt

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How to make it…
1. Combine all the ingredients for the marinade and mix together. Add the fish pieces and leave for 1 hour.
2. Heat the oil to a high heat and fry the cumin seeds and fenugreek seeks for 15 seconds. The seeds should sizzle immediately (you can test the oil is hot enough by trying a cumin seeds).
3. Turn down the heat, add the onion and cook until it has softened (about 5 minutes).
4. Add the chillies and cook for 2 minutes.
5. Add the fish with all the marinade and cook gently until the pieces are all cooked through. Be careful when stirring so you do not break up the fish pieces.
6. Sprinkle a few coriander leaves on top of the dish and serve.

CHEF’S TIP
You can also cook this using whole fish fillets but you need a large flat pan and have to cook very gently to keep the fillets intact.

If you like this you should try our…
Sag Paneer • Chilli Paneer • Butter Chicken • Butter Paneer • Prawn Korma • Medium Chicken Curry • Chicken Madras • Chicken Vindaloo • Chicken Bhoona • Chicken Dopiaza

Two fish are in a tank going round and round. “Hey,” says one fish. “Can’t you drive this straight?”

How to cook… Sindhi Biryani

Curry News, Recipes

Serves 4 as a main dish

Biryani is a rice-based dish, where all the spices, meat and vegetables are slowly cooked together over a long period of time. Although Biryani is a popular dish all over the world there are many variations – this is the version from the Province of Sindhi in Pakistani Punjab.

What you need…
• 400g potatoes, cut into 4cm chunks
• 2 drops yellow colouring
• 10 Tablespoons ghee• 2 onions, roughly chopped• 1 teaspoon ginger paste
• 1 teaspoon garlic paste
• 500g chicken thighs and legs, on the bone
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 250g yoghurt
• 4 tomatoes, cut into halves
• 100g plums
• small handful coriander leaves, roughly chopped
• 5 mint leaves, roughly chopped
• 5 green chillies, with a small slit in each
• 300g rice
• 3 Tablespoons rose water
• 0.5 teaspoon nutmeg powder

Spice Mix
• 2 cloves
• 2 cardamoms (cracked but not crushed)
• 10cm piece cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 Tablespoon chilli powder
• 1 Tablespoon turmeric powder


How to make it…
1. Boil the potatoes in water with a drop of yellow colouring until they are nearly cooked. Drain the potatoes and pat dry with a paper towel.
2. Heat 1 Tablepoon ghee to a medium heat and fry the potatoes until they are crisp and starting to brown. Remove the potatoes and set aside.
3. Add 2 Tablespoons ghee and the onions, and fry until golden brown.
4. Add the ginger paste, garlic paste and the chicken, and stir fry for 5 minutes.
5. Add the Spice Mix and salt and cook for 3 minutes.
6. Add the yoghurt and fried potatoes, mix well, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Add the tomatoes, the plums, coriander leaves, mint leaves and chillies, and mix well. Remove the pan from the heat.
9. Wash the rice until the water is clear. This will take 6–7 washes, maybe more. Boil the rice in fresh water, with a little salt, until cooked.
10. Drain the rice andspread it evenly on top of the chicken mixture.
11. Dissolve a drop of yellow colour in rose water and spread it, with the rest of the ghee, on top of rice. Allow this to dissolve for 30 seconds. Sprinkle the nutmeg powder on top of the mixture.
12. Return the pan to a medium heat and simmer, covered, for 8 minutes.
13. Remove the cover, allow the steam to escape for a couple of minutes and serve.
• Recipe courtesy of Zaynub Mahmood. Photo below: Miansari66 CCA.

CHEF’S TIP There are quite a few ingredients in this dish so get everything ready before you start cooking.

If you like this you should try our…
Medium Chicken Curry • Chicken Madras • Chicken Vindaloo • Chicken Bhoona

Never rush a biryani… it’s not a rice.

Chop chop

1. Reviews (London)

Lahore, E1

“I pretty much just end up eating plates of chops when I go to Lahore,” I tell my friend, who is heading to this iconic restaurant for the first time.

“What? No curry?” he asks, as if a night without the spicy tomato and onion sauce at least somewhere on the table, would be plain wrong.

A short while later he looks up from a mound of red meat, his hands covered in tasty juices from the plate, and exclaims: “I can see why you eat chops here!”

We’ve ordered two plates of their chops (£9.95 for five) and are tucking in. Lahore really do make the chops in most other places seem like mini offcuts. This large Pakistani restaurant is often referred to as an institution, so engrained is it in the way of life in Whitechapel. There are other restaurants in the same area called Lahore One and Lahore Two, although neither, as far as I am told, are run by the same owners. Lahore is the daddy and chops is the dish of choice. Plate after plate of these mouth-watering chunks of marinated meat head out of the open kitchen, where you can watch flashes of flame bursting from dishes as they are cooked. The spice marinade is rich and the balance between slightly charred edges and the tasty fattiness of the lamb is perfect. A huge plate of fresh salad, which is routinely placed on every table as guests arrive is the ideal mouth cleanser from the grease when fingers are licked clean.

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You can’t book in this canteen-style restaurant and it’s not uncommon to see a queue snaking out into the road. But once in you’ll join the hustle and bustle of a truly working restaurant, with a stream of waiters seamlessly delivery those fresh salads, jugs of water water, glasses for your drinks (it’s a BYO) taking orders and delivering dishes. And all this amid a throng of happy diners. This not a place where people whisper quietly, it’s where they fully embrace the food with gusto. It’s where there was restaurant theatre long before some PR person thought they’d attach the tag to the restaurant of some TV chef’s venue.

One curry club I know refuse to eat anywhere else; every month they meet here and tuck in. To chops no doubt.

But there is way more if you can force yourself from the lamb. Each day there is a special, said to recreate favourites from the streets of Lahore (how about Chicken Haleem, £10, on the weekend?). The Onion Bhaji (£3.50) is so fresh from the oil you’d be advised to wait a while before picking the pieces up unless you have asbestos fingers. And the Chicken Kebab Roll (£3.50) is a nice tandoori break from the lamb.

But if you still yearn for a “curry” they are all there waiting: Karai Gosht (£9.50), Chana Masala (£7), Chicken Biryani (£9.75), even Fish Curry (£9.50). But I must admit, with the meat coursing through my veins after the chops, I usually just overload with a Keema Curry (£9,50) and accept that this was a meat day without any doubt

Lahore, 2 Umberston Street, London E1 1PY. Tel: 020 7481 9737. Open: daily 11.30am – 1am.

Scores on the tandoors
Food 9
Decor 5
Service and friendliness 7.5
Vibe 10 (Tuesday evening)
Value 9