a pakistani downton supper: chicken hara masala

chicken hara masala

green is the colour of renewal, of beginning afresh. i associate it with bright slices of foliage that cropped from the rock mountains in gilgit, the tentative appearance of spring in london - pale shoots and soft carpet of grass in the parks. green is the glossy growth of trees in the margalla’s refreshed by monsoon rain. green are the pine needles in nathia gali. this recipe is the colour of coriander, albeit slightly subdued in its brightness as it is lightened with yoghurt and cream. the heat also affects the shade. it is best with chicken on the bone as it intensifies the flavour of the masala. but in the interest of time and this being a downton supper i used boneless. i served it on a bed of steamed basmati. a sesame studded naan would be equally good.

downton suppers: keema and channa pilau

keema and channa pilau

pilau is one of my favourite one-pot recipes. it’s the pakistani equivalent of a casserole and summons comfort and nourishment. i do believe that pilau is a genre of rice dishes given its many versions. my curiosity about its origins prompted a consultation with alan davidson’s oxford companion to food. apparently pilaf or pilau is a method of cooking ‘so that every grain remains separate, and the name of the resulting dish’. pilau can be plain but its popular renditions include flavouring from meat or vegetables.

baba's dry beef with chillies; a dinner ritual

ginger, chilli and garlic paste

the ritual of dry beef with chillies as the concluding dinner of my trips to pakistan began when i left to attend university in twenty o one in the united kingdom. the ritual established itself without baba or i making a conscious decision. it is still very much alive a decade later, the only break in the pattern being the year i got married. that was the first time i had left pakistan without a last dinner of dry beef with chillies cooked by baba. 

an afternoon tea from diana henry's salt sugar smoke

salt sugar smoke signed for me

i discovered the world of food writing in the late nineties but it wasn’t until nigel slater’s toast that i seriously started drawing up lists of food writing that i wanted to read. over the last few years my food book rolls have come to include cookery books as well. this is because cookery books today are as much a pleasure to read, as they are to cook from. their prologues and prefaces hold much promise and often reveal the personality of the chef. 

eating pakistan

my annual trips to pakistan include an evolving list of things i want to eat. there are some constants. the first breakfast is always several cups of tapal tea with quarters of toasted roghni naan. the final dinner is always baba’s beef chilli dry with boiled rice. the space between is filled with homemade shami kebabs especially on toast with a slick of mitchell’s chilli garlic sauce and draped with adam’s cheese, afghani kebabs and mantu at kabul restaurant in jinnah, samosa chaat at mashallah chaat house in super market and kulfi from jamil. 

baba's beef chilli dry