Dispatches: Nihari Redux

Last week, Abbas posted a little video I made of a journey to Karachi's Burns Road to have one of my very favorite foods, nihari.  So I thought I would supply some more information about this gastronomic epiphany.

Nihari is a dish of spiced, braised meat that has achieved sentimental status for many Pakistanis and Indians.  Shanks, which can be beef, lamb, or goat, are simmered overnight in a broth flavored with red pepper, black pepper, garlic, mace, coriander, and other spices.  Often they are left to braise in a pot covered in embers to maintain an even and low temperature.  After six to eight hours of simmering, when the shanks have tenderized, the cooking liquid is thickened and flavored with fried onions, and the finished stew is served with chopped coriander, minced green chilies, slivered ginger, lime wedges.  It is eaten with plain fresh naan, usually for breakfast or brunch - especially after long nights for its restorative qualities.  I think its combination of deeply flavored, earthy meat, the fresh zest of the toppings, and the perfection of a proper tandoori naan is one of the greatest bites there is to eat.

The nihari shops of Karachi and Lahore do bustling business, but mention it to many expatriate Pakistanis and you will hear consecutive sighs.  (I hold that Pakistani nihari is better.  Why?  Because Pakistan is better.  Kidding.  It's because it's best made with beef, which is uncommon in India.)  Good nihari is not commonly available in this country.  The great wave of Indian restaurants that colonized the US and Britain, mostly run by Bangladeshi entrepreneurs starting in London's Brick Lane and New York's Sixth Street, denatured a group of regional dishes into a standardized scale of chili heat: vindaloo, jalfrezi, do piaz, madras, etc.  Nihari, a much more singular dish, didn't make it into this list, and is thus only found in restaurants catering to South Asian immigrants, and even then usually only available as a weekend special.

The number of cultures that have restorative dishes made from long-simmered, gelatinous cuts of meat served with fresh seasonings makes one wonder about the possibility of a universal index of deliciousness.  In Mexico, so similar to the subcontinent in ingredients and general approach to cuisine, there is goat's head stew as well as  the great hangover cure, posole (hominy corn in pork and chicken broth topped with fresh radishes, lime, and salsa).  In Italy, osso buco combines braised lamb shanks with gremolata, or lemon zest mixed with chopped parsley.  In Turkey, tripe soup is a weekend brunch special.

The shanks, or lower legs, of cows, lambs and goats have richly marrowed bones surrounded by a ring of stringy, tough meat.  Opposite in texture to more usual star cuts such as tenderloin, shanks require long cooking to become edible and also contain large amounts of gelatin.  That's why they are usually used in luxury Western cooking for stock.  But shanks, like many humble cuts of meat, have enjoyed a popular renaissance with the vogue for peasant foods.  So maybe it's time for nihari to take its place alongside osso buco and barbecued ribs in the list of foods considered by gastronomes as honest and authentic regional delicacies.  As Abbas mentioned, I bet Anthony Bourdain would love it.  For many Pakistanis and Indians, it occupies that place already: its rarity in restaurants only contributes to its aura.  You might say that in the social imaginary it represents the streets of home themselves, in all their remembered specificity.  Taste, memory.

With most such foods, the genius of the place supposedly cannot be transported - if you're meant to taste authenticity, you can't take it with you.  Here is the point in the story where I'm supposed to admit that my grandmother cooked the greatest nihari, or that I fondly remember youthful trips to the nihariwallahs of Burns Road.  That would go along with the mythologizing impulse that we often give in to when talking about such talismanic foods.  I'd rather use the example of nihari to rebut that idea.  Actually, I tasted it for the first time at the age of about twenty at my aunt's house, in Baltimore.  I was immediately hooked, and started cooking it for both my family and anyone else who expressed an interest in trying it.  Surprisingly, it was quite easy, and the results were always good.  There were a few early periods where I ate it every day for a week.

It was only in 2004, when I visited Pakistan for the first time in ten years, that I had the chance to try the real deal.  And so I toured the famous specialist shops (in case you're going, I especially love Zahid's of Saddar, Karachi and the little shop outside the Lahore's Lahori gate, where my mother and I had a memorable lunch).  So for me the dish doesn't hold the kind of retrospective nostalgia it does for many people.  So just as I think it's a bit silly to wait in line for two hours with a bunch of trainspotting foodies to have a slice of Di Fara's admittedly delicious pizza, I think one shouldn't overly romanticize a foodstuff's most legendary purveyors when you can have it in your own home.  This is also because I know that nihari is not hard to make, and so you can have it anytime.  Here's how:

NIHARI

4 tablespoons oil
4 lbs. beef shanks (I think beef provides the best flavor for this dish)
6 garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons nihari masala (you can use a packet of Shaan, or use the one below)
2 onions, halved and sliced
1/2 cup flour
naan, made yourself or from a good restaurant (no butter!)
for garnish: chopped coriander, limes wedges, minced bird's eye chilies, slivered ginger

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat and brown the meat in two batches.  Then fry the garlic until just coloring, return the meat and add the masala to the pot and add ten cups of water.  Bring to a boil, then cover and turn down to the lowest simmer.  Go to sleep.  When you wake up, or about six to eight hours later, test the meat for doneness - it should be fork-tender and the marrow should have melted out of the bones, leaving them as clean white rings in the broth.  Remove a teacup of the broth and whisk the flour into it, removing lumps.  Reintroduce the floured broth to the pot.  Now fry the onion until browned with a little more of the masala, then pour this mixture into the broth.  Turn the heat up and boil rapidly with the cover off until you reach a slightly thickened texture, though still a bit watery.  Taste for salt.  Serve with fresh naan (if bought, ride your bike back from the restaurant quite fast to maintain their heat) and small bowls with the garnishes.  Make sure to squeeze plenty of lime juice into your serving.  You won't be sorry.

NIHARI MASALA

2 tbl red pepper
5 tsp salt
2 tbl of paprika (for redness)
2 tbl ginger powder
1 tsp powdered nutmeg
2 tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp fennel seeds
1tsp black cumin seeds
1 tsp kalongi (um, either onion or nigella seeds, can't remember)
4 bay leaves
1 tbl whole mace

Grind the last six ingredients into a powder, then mix with the above.  This will make more than you need for one dish.

All my dispatches.

Comments

[Abbas Raza]

I am just curious about this: it would make sense to keep your nihari masala secret if you were planning to somehow profit from this proprietary knowledge someday, which, knowing you, seems an unlikely possibility. Otherwise, what harm would it do you if others were able to use your hard-won knowledge for their own pleasure? If someone is buying Shaan masala (a brand of prepackaged masalas for various Pakistani dishes), they also get with it instructions on how to cook it, making your recipe seem superfluous, no?

[Builder]

Nihari is easy to make, but good nihari is very difficult to make. Most nihari places in Karachi pale in comparison to the home-cooked variety. Sabri and Javed Nihari, which are famous, are both terrible in this regard. Nihari is meant to be fibers of the meat in a thick stew, not an island of low-quality meat-mass swimming in a bowl of oil.

Also I have issues with your recipe--mainly that four tablespoons of nihari masala for four pounds of beef is akin to cooking up Gerber baby food. There is no point in making nihari that is not spicy.

[cavorting]

First, a correction: Osso buco is by definition veal shank rather than lamb. I had nihari for the first time at Raavi near Euston (London) a few months ago, which is one of the few places to get it certainly in central London, and the only one I know of. It's an excellent dish, but this restaurant version suffers from the problems stated by 'Builder. Their breads at least are good though... VG

[Elatia Harris]

OK, Asad -- you need to get to work ASAP on an e-book called "Eat, Memory: the Diasporic Guide to Restorative Cuisine." Not to worry, you won't make money. But if you structured it like a food fight in Cyberspace featuring hideously insulting disagreements among near neighbors about the authentic way to prepare nihari and its counterpart dishes, you would have on your hands a social history to pitch straight at the hearts of readers of Nabokov, Bachelard, Debord, De Certeau, Jameson, Eagleton and Yi-fu Tuan.

One of the worst of many withering things a Neapolitan may have to say about a Milanese is that he cooks with butter, not with olive oil. But what is this compared to mentioning a man's masala in the same sentence wherein the word "Gerber" appears?

[Asad]

Elatia, you cracked me up, and for that I thank you - I can only reply to Builder that no one has complained about my version's lack of heat. Either that, or, you wanna take this into the kitchen? Though I invite Builder (or anyone!) to post their own recipe in the comments so I can try it.

cavorting, thanks for the veal correction, my silly mistake. Also thanks for the restaurant tip; on weekends, I would expect Lahore Kebab House on Umberston Street in the East End, or Tayyab's in Whitechapel, to have it.

Abbas, I AM planning on starting a nihari masala empire to challenge Shaan and National in the near future. But just for you, I will mortgage my future and include the masala recipe above. It's not easy to write down, for a reason that might weaken my claim that the dish is easy to make: I don't measure things when I make it. 4 tablespoons was an estimate of the total amount of masala I think is needed - and I don't even make the masala exactly the same every time. I keep experimenting: the ratio of spices in a dish is more like a window than an exact formula. So was ten cups of water - actually, I know what looks to be the right amount of water from the level in the pot I use. Plus, I have a mystical belief that things come out better when you use your eyes, nose, and tongue instead of exact measurements (note: I don't bake much).

As with all cooking, repetition is the only way to develop a feel for a dish. Most things are fixable: you just boil the water away until the level is right, or add more if it gets too thick. The amount of masala can be increased during the onion-frying stage. Etc. Don't be afraid!

[maniza]

Ingredients
Shan Masala.
Two cups of oil
Ginger garlic ground at least a cup Half garlic half ginger.
4 pounds beef shank.

Table spoon of flour dissolved in cup of water.

Onion large. Sliced thin.

Lavazmath/garnishing: lots and lots of fresh corriander, green onions, lime and ginger chopped. Use a scissor so much easier to finely slice up a whole lot of ginger, corriander and green chilies.

Cooking instructions
Heat oil on low fire. Add ginger and garlic.--

Add Shank cut up or not.Its going to disolve so don't worry about cutting it up.

Cook till Shank browns. Then,
Add--Shan Masala.

Stir--cook a bit then add lots of water--so that the meat is coved and you've got a 2/3 filled pot. Ummm make it a 12 quart pot--so now its 2/3rds filled. Let it boil--boil-boil---still boiling---oh for about five hours--till the meat's pretty soft and dissolving--

THEN--take that flour in water mixture and add to the broth while stirring the broth so that the flour doesn't get lumpy--this is meant to thicken the broth. This is key.

When the the broth has thickend then fry up the onions in more oil or take some of the excess oil from the nihari (you used two cups full so there's plenty there. When the onions have fried to a dark brown pour the sizzling oil and onions into the broth.

Nihari is ready---serve with white flour naans-or white plain rice--(not chapatis and not wheat naans)

Sprinkle the garnishing to individual taste. Serve in bowls.

That's my way.

[Jeff Strabone]

Asad, you wrote,
'I was immediately hooked, and started cooking it for both my family and anyone else who expressed an interest in trying it.'

I hereby express an interest in trying it. I am looking forward to the next campaign of the KLF (Karaoke Liberation Front). Perhaps we can combine the two: nihari and karaoke. That would be too excellent.

I know that the British Empire was disproportionately staffed by Scots. Was Burns Road named after Robert Burns?

[Carlos]

Just now got back from our local Pakistani kitchen/market. For the first time they had Nihari. I'm hooked. I bought a packet of the Shan for a backup, but since I seem to have most of the ingredients, even the kalonji seeds (picked up randomly during a shopping forage--now I know what they are for!), I'll be giving this a western try.

[Carlos]

Nihari After Action Report

I neglected to follow up. I made Nihari over the weekend per Asad's Recipe. Great Success! A little heavy for my wife and daughter, but overall they loved it. I even brought some in to work for the stern judgment of my Desi co-workers and they gave it a thumbs up.

I will admit, though, that my wife is a bit aghast that I have been eating the leftovers for breakfast all week. But hey, porridge is porridge, even if it is flaming hot meat porridge, right?

[Asad Raza]

Nice going! Further advice: have your cholesterol checked immediately.

[Abbas Raza]

Carlos, maybe you should have titled your comment

Nihari Is Heavy, Asserts Report-Interim

since you were kinda' close to an acronym anyway! (Sorry, this is the best I could do quickly, but I challenge you to produce a better acronymic title for your post. :-)

[Husna]

Tony would definitely enjoy Hyderabadi nihari, made with tongue.

[Abul Kasam]

We made Nihari today, for the first time ever. And it was amaaazing. PS your comments on the wedge of lime was spot on. Perfect finish to such an intensely flavoured dish!

Pics here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=16929936&l=3ccfdab3b4&id=519305220